


Bloom How You Must

by GStK, PlumTea



Category: Granblue Fantasy (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Mob, M/M, Mild Sexual Content, Suspense
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-25
Updated: 2021-01-25
Packaged: 2021-02-27 10:34:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 39,390
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22395607
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GStK/pseuds/GStK, https://archiveofourown.org/users/PlumTea/pseuds/PlumTea
Summary: A string of high-profile murders is stirring up the underground. To stay alive in the stew of the growing chaos, to be the ones feeding the flames. Truly, love can make you do anything.
Relationships: Belial/Lucilius (Granblue Fantasy), Lucifer/Sandalphon (Granblue Fantasy)
Comments: 34
Kudos: 125





	1. it was called eternity

**Author's Note:**

> Mafia AU where Lucilius is mad, Sandalphon is sad, and Belial is having a hell of a time.

Belial is already twenty minutes late.

Every tick of the second hand on his watch reminds him that he dallied far too long. He has to shrug it off; time or no time, he needs to look his best. That means combed hair, manicured nails, shined leather shoes. He was going to go with his black double-breasted mohair suit at first, but then someone had to go and bleed all over it. Above all things, there is no bringing work into ceremony, especially not today’s ceremony.

Five minutes to shower, five minutes to change, ten minutes to the town clerk. He leaps out of the car when it parks by the curb. The wool suit he had to change into is a little warm for the weather, and the slim cut hugs his best angles when he runs, but he is running to something and not away from it. There’s no better reason to go even faster. 

He dashes up to the second floor, and there by the teller window is the light in the dark, his love, his messiah. He is as pale and radiant as a star under the halogen lights, in suit as black as shadow. The red scarf he always wears tumbles across his shoulders and flows as elegantly as a trickle of blood, twists like a serpent when Lucilius turns towards him. 

The little clerk looks like she’s about to pass out. She recognizes Lucilius as trouble, and if she didn’t recognize it from his look, then she definitely does from the pistol at his shoulder. The other employees are staring at Lucilius and the clerk scared out of her mind. They’re on edge, but it doesn’t seem like anyone has tried to call the police. If they had, there would be blood on the floor.

“You,” every word from Lucilius’ throat is a crackle of fire, turning everything to ash, “are late.”

“Sorry to keep you waiting. I got caught up in things—”

“Enough of your excuses.” Lucilius slaps a pen into Belial’s hand. “Sign.”

“You’re working me to the bone here,” he sighs, but fills out the marriage form otherwise. It’s a strange feeling, putting down his actual personal information. When was the last time he told the truth to the state?

The clerk checks over their IDs, real for once, and scribbles some approvals down. Her penmanship is surprisingly steady for such a shaky hand. She does not ask for the license fee. 

“You have to wait 24 hours to be married after you fill out your marriage license…”

Lucilius gives her a look that could clot blood.

“...Or I could process this right now. Could you wait a moment, please?” She could not scurry away to the back room any faster. 

Belial lets out a dramatic sigh and slings his arm across Lucilius’ shoulders. “Now darling, be nice to the young lady. Without her, none of this would get done.”

Lucilius clips him with a stare, one that says both that he knows exactly how to expedite bureaucratic nonsense and that he still despises any pet names. Belial knows this, but that Lucilius doesn’t point the gun at him is proof that he’s the exception. 

Their lady comes back with another clerk, who checks the paperwork over before handing it back. She sits back down, still shivering, still waiting until she’s doomed. “Change of name?”

“No,” Lucilius answers for him. Belial’s a nobody, and Lucilius is looking to end his bloodline with him. 

“Are you having a civil ceremony?”

Belial looks to Lucilius then; he never thought he would ever get married, so he’s willing to go with the flow. 

“If you must.”

No church, then. As much as Belial would have _loved_ to have Lucio officiate their wedding, see if that perfect face crumbles when he sees just who is marrying his darling little brother, Lucilius would willingly go to church when he’s dead. 

“Then do you have a witness?” The clerk blinks wildly when she sees Lucilius staring bored and expectantly at her. “Me? I couldn’t possibly…” She is then reminded of the bulk by Lucilius’ shoulder. “I will very happily be your witness, sir.”

They will not have their ceremony outdoors, where everyone can ogle them. Theirs is a private affair, one that they will only permit one outsider to see. The room the clerk leads them to is very bare; empty tables set on the sides for cakes and plates, a high ceiling for streamers and banners to hand but not too high that it can’t be reached, wide enough for a few small groups to stand comfortably. At the front of the room, the clerk’s speech comes out rushed, fear speeding up the first half and memorization speeding up the latter. 

Belial turns to Lucilius, takes Lucilius’ long fingers in his palm and squeezes. Lucilius glances at him, but allows it. 

She offers that they say their vows, and Belial sneers in her face. Whatever vows Lucilius and him have, they’re not ones crafted by tradition or the state. They’ve said their own, on their own time, in ways nobody else would understand.

The gray velvet of the box has a splash of blood on the corner, and it doesn’t come off no matter how much Belial rubs at it. Their rings are plain; no jewels, just a simple gold band a quarter of a millimeter thick, one that’s only visible either by looking close or standing in the sun. He is careful slipping his onto Lucilius’ finger, smooth and undisturbed, having memorized every nock of bone from fingertip to knuckle. Lucilius slams his ring on Belial’s finger, already annoyed and impatient. It makes Belial laugh from the bottom of his stomach. 

“Then um, I pronounce you both husbands. You may, er, kiss the groom.”

The moment. Belial’s life is hanging by a thread. He may have ground a man down into chuck and bone an hour earlier, but now he’s as fragile as he’d ever be. He waits for Lucilius’ judgment, as he always has. 

Lucilius, the terror of the state, the intolerable genius, the bane to peace and mercy. Lucilius, whose thoughts lie deeper than the blackness of the sea, whose wrath could bring down the stars, whose silence hollows more than death. Lucilius, who grabs his collar and pulls him down to kiss him. 

Lucilius, who he will belong to, and who belongs to him, eternally. 

* * *

As long as that eternity shall last, by Lucilius decreed. The look his newlywed husband gives him now promises a very slow and agonising death for what’s he done.

Rather, what he hasn’t done.

Belial hasn’t even had time to take off his shoes, much less unload the rifle at his back. “Nice to see you too,” he purrs, unable to keep the exhaustion out of his voice. He leans in. “Where’s my welcome home kiss?”

Lucilius clicks the safety on his gun.

“News travels fast,” Belial jokes, as though Lucilius doesn’t have a finger on the vein of the city. His hit would have been confirmed seconds after the fall, had it been carried out. And then, he could have always radioed Lucilius himself— but he didn’t. No news is bad news, ain’t it. “There were complications, my darling. My trumpet. My little honey bun—”

He must have a death wish because the pet names are only wearing down the short wick of Lucilius’ patience. “You had one job. You had the tools. You had the opportunity. The one and only thing I expect of you is to rise to the occasion, and now you’ve failed me on every single front.” The words are just little needles that jab; what hurts the most, what hurts at all, is that Lucilius won’t even look at him.

Belial heaves a sigh and removes his gun, throws it by the strap onto the couch. Lucilius is fast-retreating into their home. “Like I said, there were problems—”

“Enough.”

Lucilius seats himself in his chair. It’s comfortable, made of real leather dyed stark red. There’s ash marks where Belial extinguished his cigarettes into the material and it had to be re-fitted, but there’s also stains of sweat that belong to more than just him, and they’ve silently agreed not to talk about it.

This, though. Lucilius crosses his legs and docks his elbow against the arm of the chair, resting his chin against his knuckles. Belial takes a willing place by his feet, testing his luck when he presses the side of his cheek against his husband’s thigh. Still, no cutting stare. He doesn’t even get a kick. That’s how serious it is.

“You have no idea what you’ve done.”

“I have an idea,” Belial murmurs. He shuts his eyes to the sunset cutting through the blinds and brings himself back to the moment. Camped out in the highest window of the chapel, he’d had a straight shot for the man himself. There was no wind; his target had been thoroughly distracted by coffee and company.

He could have put a bullet through brown hair, but he didn’t. His shot had cast low and grazed a sinewy neck. It would’ve bled like a bitch but it wouldn’t have killed. He didn’t stick around to check. And all of this because—

“You could’ve told me your twin was dating the target.”

“Cousin,” Lucilius corrects snippily, “Who now knows that there is a hit out on that boy, because you _missed_.”

“A bullet through the head would have clued him in, I think,” Belial muses.

“You could have pushed him. Cut him. You could have fucked him and strangled him in bed,” Lucilius scoffs, knee shifting and upsetting Belial’s position. “But you chose the dangerous route and now they are aware they’re being hunted.”

“Are we going to kill your cousin?”

“No, you clod. He is more likely to kill me.”

“I won’t let him.”

“You can’t even aim a gun. What do your promises mean?”

Everything. Nothing. Sometimes you catch a glimpse of what looks like the love of your life through the scope and your guts twist. As vile a lifestyle they lead, as demonic as they are, Belial is still human. And no one had bothered to tell him there were _three!_

“I could have him gutted and filled in a bathtub of his own blood 60 hours from now,” Belial offers.

Lucilius finally looks at him. His eyes pierce straight through him, but they stop at the spine. They’re not like Lucio’s, whose gaze just keeps on traveling on and outward.

Belial could offer a prayer here and now, and it would be the most genuine thing he had ever done.

“The boy and Lucifer know he’s being hunted,” he repeats, slow, as if speaking to a child. In truth, the cogs behind his eyes are turning, and Belial is getting to see that marvelous brain at work. “And we will be at the top of their list. A vengeful death will only confirm it. In two weeks, you will go outside, and you will kill him in the style of another family. Micenos or Bestia.”

“No Excellent Cadavers.”

Lucilius clicks his tongue. “Cadavere senza valore."[1]

Belial laughs. It’s a thick sound. He kisses the toe of Lucilius’ shiny shoes and presses a hand to his heart.

Two weeks more of eternity. After that, a falling star dies.

* * *

Sandalphon had never run faster in his life. Only once he stops does he feel the sharp pain in his side where a car clipped him when he dashed across a freeway, the dull throb in his left foot where he jammed his foot into a sidewalk crack but kept going, and all the aches. He reaches up to his neck and his fingers come back bloody, wound having opened up in the mad dash. Each breath can’t come fast enough, and he props himself up on the side of a wall. Here’s far enough that the only people looking down the street are the drunks coming home from the bars.

He parks himself behind the shadows of two dumpsters and collapses onto the concrete. Adrenaline still pumping, he reaches towards the dumpster legs, caked with dust and hardened grime, and his hands come up shaky. 

Nothing tonight went right. There’s three hours until dawn and he wishes it would come sooner.

A night at the fast food joint by the highway turned sour when a couple of street boys from White Dragons had sat down uninvited at their booth, starting with some sharp words and ending in a brawl. Fighting isn’t like movies; the faster the better. Sandalphon is quick on his feet and quicker with a hand razor. Even if they managed to get the three street boys down, the sirens told a different story. Scattering’s normal, a promise to regroup later. Scattering means that the cops can’t get all of them, and whoever they do get never has the whole story. 

Sandalphon had taken a different route than usual; weaved past the traffic jam off the main strip, down a few unswept alleyways. There aren’t many patrol cars down by the riverside docks, the cops not wanting to risk their government-car bumpers on the cobblestones. 

He wasn’t in Society territory, but Sandalphon ducked behind a line of cars when he saw Don Alandus exiting one of the apartments, chatting with a young woman. A few men were loitering around the stoop, looking like they had parked there for the night, but far too many to be just any congregation. 

A drunk woman stumbling on spike heels fumbled her way through the streets, drinking the remains of her night out in a brown paper bag. She’d tripped on the cobblestones, drink smashing into the Don’s car as he was about to get in, spilling all across the windshield. He’d stopped to yell at her, and Sandalphon heard her slurred voice bouncing between the empty buildings, reaching into her purse for an insurance card and coming up with a gun. The Don’s face exploded in a spray of blood. 

Sandalphon took off before anyone had time to scream. He hadn’t been spotted, and he wasn’t about to be. He didn’t care where he was going— anywhere that wasn’t there. That wasn’t an accident, a random drive-by spraying gunfire to hit whatever they can. That was a killer’s hit; that was planned.

The thoughts still shiver across his head. Society was going to be in a panic in the morning, with one of their heads dead. If they don’t manage to get a grip on their territories, it’s going to be a mad scramble to see who eats them first. More blood is going to be spilled in this town, and Sandalphon’s group doesn’t want anything to do with it. But no amount of wishing means that hell’s not going to get raised soon. 

A chill is in the nighttime air, and Sandalphon finds the notches along the brick wall. Sinking his fingers into one, one nail still split from where it bashed into the booth table and a pocketknife. A small trickle of blood dribbles down towards his palm, oxygen stinging. 

Nobody’s coming for him. Nobody saw him. He’ll just loop around the pier and head right back uptown to sleep off this nightmare. He wants to collapse into his soft mattress, pull the sheets over his head, and forget this whole thing. 

Or Lucifer. The idea sticks in his head for the briefest moment: text Lucifer, and when he responds at least that would be a lifeline to normal life, a reminder that someone on the other end is a place where he’s safe. What Sandalphon wouldn’t give to be with Lucifer right now, to have Lucifer assure him that everything would be alright.

Now’s not the time for daydreams. He pushes the idea out of his head. What’s important is getting back uptown, and getting safe. 

* * *

“Well, he’s dead. His face is strawberry pie. Good riddance.” Feower clicks his tongue at the body, no compassion lost. The police have to do their jobs, even when the victim is scum. “Did you get all the statements?”

Lucifer nods, hands Feower the hastily scribbled down notes from the witnesses, at least from the ones that hadn’t fled. One might wonder why not all of them turned tail the moment the murder occurred, but it was more a matter of documenting who was present and off the hook rather than asking the police for aid. 

Feower snatches the pad with his usual brashness, grumbling as he flips through its contents. He’d downed a whole triple shot of espresso before he came here, and his usual sour temperament wasn’t helped by having to wake up in the middle of the night on his off day. Forensics are still taking photos of the body, but Lucifer’s allowed to come close, just as long as he doesn’t disturb the crime scene. No sign of the perpetrator, likely either hauled away by the ones that ran, or escaped themselves. Another body would pop up soon, he knew it. 

There have been a lot of bodies lately. Corpses have become more normal than Lucifer has ever wanted; two weeks ago, it was Alethan from Levin, brained on the sidewalk. Connor of Irestill, suffocated when his home caught fire. None of them were brazen, and all of them were cautious, not the types to be caught off guard by someone trying to make a name for themselves. Lucifer knew them all. Once. 

Threo scares him from the front. She’s learned that she shouldn’t startle him from behind, but usually he sees her coming. The blood soaked cobblestones and the white tape encircling a corpse who was once a person had drawn him in like a bog. What she’s saying fizzles in and out, and she still talks too fast. He gestures her closer, and her mouth pops open in realization, stepping into his space. “Coffee!” she yells, holding up the set of three. 

Feower reaches over, plucks his out of the bunch, and starts chugging. Lucifer carefully takes his and thanks her, and she grins before skipping away to give instructions to the paramedics arriving on the scene. 

His phone buzzes in his back pocket. He doesn’t have many people who know his number, not while he’s on duty. He slides back to the patrol car and checks when nobody's looking, sucks in a deep breath when he sees who it is. 

_Are you awake?_ Sandalphon. 

Sandalphon knows his work shifts, he knows that Lucifer is on duty tonight. He sends back a quick message, asking if something is wrong. 

He’s finished half his coffee by the time he gets a response. _No, I just wanted to know if you had time._ Ten seconds, then, _Are you free tomorrow? I want to see you._

Sadly, he is not. With a murder of this profile, he’s going to be stuck at his desk doing paperwork, and silently collapse when he gets home. Sandalphon knows he’s part of the murder investigation, but he doesn’t know why the bodies and caution tape and snapping shutters freeze Lucifer’s spine. He can’t know, and it’s better if he doesn’t.

If only Sandalphon were here right now. If only Lucifer could steal a few hours away from his desk, or have the time to snag an extra few minutes at lunch to see the sunlight curve in Sandalphon’s smile. Sandalphon would talk about his day, some small things, some silly, and the weariness would fall away. He reminds Lucifer to breathe when he’d forget to otherwise. 

_I’m sorry, not tomorrow._ He is just as disappointed writing it as he imagines Sandalphon would be reading it. _Next week, perhaps?_

A long minute. Then, _Next week,_ a promise that pushes the bog just a bit further away. 

* * *

Lucifer is the light in the dark. Lucifer is a goodness that simply shouldn't exist in their world of guns and Families. When Lucifer smiles at him, Sandalphon can forget the swift beating delivered to him by a cop when he was ten, sticky fingers just trying to grab enough food for him and his own.

The man had burned a cigar through the entire encounter. When he was satisfied with the amount of times he had stomped Sandalphon's head and hands, he'd laughed, and dusted the excess ash right into Sandalphon's face. He still has the little pink scars dusting his nose.

Beautiful Lucifer, so kind and curious, had thought them freckles. Sandalphon didn't have the heart to correct him.

But now is not a day for reminiscing about the love of his life. Sandalphon buries his head further beneath the blankets, popping open his phone. The thin tug of dread that pulls at him every time— because surely, this is the day Lucifer finds out about his record— disappears with the new flood of texts. Some are from buzzing group chats he never asked to be a part of. A few are for him alone.

A smile tugs at his face while he clutches a pillow to his cheek. Sariel's completed his ant farm and sent a triumphant picture of the glass stand. _It's finished_ , says the otherwise bland text, but Sandalphon can feel his distant happiness radiating from here. It's no small feat to recruit ants from between the cracks in the sidewalk and make them all get along. 

_Grats_ , he sends back, but his group understands him; that he responds at all is a feat in itself. Sariel will not send him a new message until a new vital ant-related development has occurred, and that's okay.

Next: a somewhat bombastic capture of the recent news, and death, of a certain don that Sandalphon was present for. Sandalphon winces; he knows Karteira means well, but there's gold in her eyes and an ear pressed to the wall of every Family house.

 _This is our chance!_ she rattles from the other side of town.

_With every family about to fight over new territory? Pass._

_You'll never become a don this way, Sandy,_ comes the chipper reply.

He grunts aloud. When did that become his new moniker? It's spreading like a disease. _I'm not interested in being part of Society_ , he taps.

Again, quick as lightning: _Because of Lucifer?_

And here he scowls. He hasn't told anyone in their group about his whirlwind… relationship? romance? The very thought makes him red at the ears. He is furious in reply: _This has nothing to do with him._

_So you DO know him! Aha! The boss has finally caught the love bug!_

Physically trembling from rage, and definitely not embarrassment, Sandalphon snaps: _I have nothing to do with him and he has nothing to do with me. Keep me out of your rumour mills._

 _Roger,_ Karteira answers. He only trusts her for all the years they've been together. She would gladly sell out anyone else—

There's a knock at his door and Sandalphon tumbles out of the sheets. He is a haphazard mess when Gabriel enters. "Morning," she greets, warm as a hot spring, carrying a tray of coffee and biscuits. "How's your neck?"

Sandalphon has half a mind to refuse her, but it's almost midday and he hasn't eaten since the Don's untimely demise. "Fine," he answers neutrally, receiving the tray in his lap. A bit guilty, he rebukes, "I never asked you to—"

"Oh, I know. You just have to accept that some people love you, Sandalphon," she giggles. Grace incarnate, she settles with her silvery dress and layers at the stool across from his bed. She takes his phone from him and hands him a napkin. "Everyone has been worried about you."

"...I've just been tired," he lies, biting the back of his tongue. He lies about Lucifer; he lies _to_ Lucifer; he lies about almost getting shot in the neck and seeing a man's face explode like a cherry bomb. He's so tired of lying. "I'll be back with Noa and the boys today."

Gabriel brings her hands together softly. She manages to make plugging a phone into the wall look graceful. "They'll be excited. They've been practising without you."

At Sandalphon's considerate silence, she adds with a sigh, "Gran gave himself a concussion."

Sandalphon baulks. "Again?"

"He's quite determined to be as acrobatic as you."

"He has the finesse of a paper bag," Sandalphon curses around a biscuit.

Gabriel laughs. "All the more reason to guide him, no? You took in a group of thieving little boys and made them more passionate about parkour than picking pockets. You're their hero."

Sandalphon snorts.

"...Papa."

"I am NOT—" he begins, but Gabriel is giggling her way out the door.

Left to stew in his own annoyance, Sandalphon ignores the fond beating of his heart and sips at his coffee.

It's sweet, not at all bitter like the blends Lucifer makes.

* * *

There is a healthy distinction between a Family and a family. What they have is a family. What makes a Family is greed, corruption, and people tied together under the false premise of protecting each other. Families kill each other to get ahead. A family, on the other hand—

—begins and ends with Sandalphon tucking Gran into bed, an icepack pressed to the side of his head. "You absolute fool," he swears, frowning even harder when Gran grins at him.

"I'm getting better," the young boy promises. "And one day, I'm going to be even better than you."

Sandalphon laughs. "I'd like to see you try." When Gran moves to get up, he firmly pushes him back into bed. "But not while your head is cracked open like an egg."

Gran complains; Noa moves in delicately, almost like a ghost, to provide damage control.

Families burn away their members' pasts and make soldiers out of them. A family knows that Gran was abandoned by his father and lives with it; a family knows Noa ran away from home in a ship and got cast away in a volatile storm, washing up on the beaches without a lick of memory besides his escape and his name.

Families are a curse. A family is a home. Sandalphon trudges to the library, offering a half-hearted wave to Arusha while the day's exercises burn through him.

He sits down at a desk with a pile of ring binders. Arusha comes over to him with coffee. He gives her a look that must paint her as a lifeline because she laughs. (A family laughs. Together.) "This is about all I could find on the Astrale. You'd have more luck if you asked your boyfriend," she says, with all the subtlety of a thrown brick.

"He's not my boyfriend," Sandalphon says, hiding his doubt in his coffee.

"Anyway. The police records are a lot more detailed. If you want the real story, get your hands on them. And then share them with me so I can get them archived," Arusha answers, her eyes aglitter as she moves on to the next shelf to re-organise. She is fated to get lost in a new book moments later, and Sandalphon hears her get trapped by her tiny gasp of delight.

The first ring binder is the basics, all the info anyone on the street would know. The Astrale Family was founded earlier than Society itself and built up the traditions they know today. They funded the politicians; they funded the police; they funded the arts and sciences and made their city flourish.

And now that's all come to an end. Sandalphon studies the incomplete family tree in his hands. The current leader is unnamed but his father had two sons with a bright-haired woman who was gunned down by a regular citizen in the middle of the day. There's news clippings to the effect, but it doesn't matter. Sandalphon remembers.

What followed was a bloody war so loud it rang through to the normal world. Corruption, or anger, or rebellion— he's never been sure why, but the people were _mad_. They unmade the Astrale who had made their city and home, not satisfied until the remaining members were forced into hiding. They should have been extinguished.

But the heirs remained.

"I heard they got a lot of foreign money after the war," Arusha says chattily, nearly startling Sandalphon out of his chair. She can never resist her curiosity for long. "Why are you so interested in them all of a sudden?"

Sandalphon can't rightly deny the truth to the woman who painstakingly gathered all the files for him. It took her days; he averts his eyes guiltily and touches the bandaged side of his neck. "I was just curious."

He tastes the _you're never curious_ hovering in the air, but after a moment, Arusha nods and lets him return to his devices.

That's what a family does: they trust each other. And he is completely undeserving of that trust.

—The Astrale Family is rumoured to have received an injection of foreign money after all was said and done. The two sons can't be more than his age, not with how they were hidden. The man to rise from the ashes was a cross-wearing, hooded freak with a gold braid and a creepy smile. He was the public face of the family while Sandalphon was growing up, but even he's gone away.

The shaky foundations of the Family remain in the architecture, the culture, the few surviving members. But…

Sandalphon twirls his pen and leans back in his chair. Arusha kindly refills his cup. The sunset outside turns to evening.

He shuts his eyes to think…

And he's right back in it, the moment the shot grazed his shoulder. Stupidly, he had whipped around to look at where the bullet had come from, right before Lucifer had pulled him under the table.

His ears still ringing from the shot, he had started blabbering: "What? What's going on? Lucifer, what was that? I—"

Then Lucifer had hushed him with a finger to his lips. No second shot came, but they stayed under that table for a long time. He had deliriously stared at Lucifer and thought about how much he wanted to kiss him right then and there.

Sandalphon cringes at the memory.

Lucifer had been signing to him but most of it went in one ear and out the other. Frustrated, Lucifer had lifted his voice, scratchy from disuse and yet,

Yet, it had been the most beautiful thing Sandalphon had ever heard.

"Astrale," Lucifer said like a curse.

"Astrale?" he'd repeated back dumbly.

"The…" And then Lucifer had teetered off, consumed by thought or realising he had said too much or something. Sandalphon had never been able to get in his head.

Careful that he had Sandalphon's attention, he signed: _I will protect you._

Sandalphon had swallowed, and Lucifer had mopped at the blood spilling from his neck and gathered him close.

"No, I'm—"

"Sandalphon," Lucifer said, the stress all wrong, the _phon_ coming out like _phone_. Sandalphon's heart had stopped right there. "I will protect you."

He nodded furiously against Lucifer's shoulder, and they remained beneath the table until the back-up Lucifer had radioed for made their way over.

And now, in another moment, Sandalphon opens his eyes.

He'd squeaked out an excuse to get away from the police as soon as his neck was tended to, hating the furtive look on Lucifer's face as he made his escape. And now he's here, buried deep in files about the Society's oldest family, because of two words that had been said.

For revenge? For curiosity? To figure out why Lucifer muttered those words in the first place?

He can't place his motivations, but something dark rails through him.

"Arusha," he calls.

"Yes, Sandy?"

The nickname is ignored while his eyes travel over his papers. The Astrale are still out there, and they're trying to kill Lucifer. He has a name and a reason.

That's enough, right?

"Could you get me a fountain pen and an envelope?"

Arusha smiles. "I'm glad someone still remembers the joy of paper these days."

Sandalphon smiles, too. "I have some things only a letter could say."

With a healthy dose of assistance from Karteira— assistance he will be paying for, later— the word gets out.

* * *

Belial has put out the good teacups today. He knows this set is Lucilius’ favorite: a gold-rimmed handle with bright blue asters around the rim, an old gift from one of the few people Lucilius had let into his life. Belial’s either in a good mood, or is trying to butter Lucilius up for something. 

“What is it today?”

“Peach and plum.”

Lucilius takes a tentative sip, lets the flavor seep in and settle. Belial hasn’t added any honey or milk, just the way Lucilius likes it. Belial doesn’t like tea, doesn’t care for a single thing about what goes with what, but he’s learned for Lucilius’ sake. It’s good. He likes this blend. 

“Guess what?” Belial’s grin shows his canines, sharp and gleaming white. He places a small white box on the table, undoes the thin ribbons keeping the sides pressed together. Two scones, an ispahan, a pistachio tart with raspberries. No matter how many times he’s told Belial that no, he doesn’t have a sweet tooth, Belial goes out and buys some anyway. Lucilius sighs and puts the tart on his plate. 

“What is this for?”

“What is what for?” Belial has always liked playing dumb. The stupider that people think he is, the more shocked they are when he sinks the knife in. 

Lucilius has always seen through his skin. “This fancy teatime. You could have just picked some cookies from the cabinet.”

Belial pours a cup of his own, swirls the liquid that he doesn’t care for, and takes a sip himself. “It’s been going well, just like you wanted. You should be happy.”

“Albion is still breathing.”

“Because she’s been cautious. But you know, people have to live, go outside, see the sun. She’ll make a mistake eventually.”

“And the grit.”

“Yes, and little Sandy. Why do you want him dead so much, anyway? You don’t honestly think that gun punk is a threat to you, do you?”

Lucilius will not dignify that with an answer. Belial knows that if Lucilius puts out a request, he gets a body. He will get his bodies. Lucilius bites into the tart, tasting nothing. “There’s nothing to celebrate unless it’s all done.”

Belial sighs, a conversation they’ve had multiple times already, with neither of them budging in their stance until they got tired of the stalemate. “But you’re almost done. You’ll get there. You’ll get them all. And in the meantime?” Belial hooks a raspberry off the top of the ispahan, dropping it onto his tongue. “You can laugh at them going down.” Belial says a lot of things. For the serpent that he is, he’s also quite sentimental. Lucilius has never understood that about him.

It took him a long time to plan this. Even longer to lay out the tripwires. He was careful and slow about it, and now he’s just about ready. But anxiety worms into his fingers, wriggles beneath his muscles. He doesn’t like games he can’t win. Until he’s certain the board will be his, there’s no fun in it. 

Lucilius holds out his drained teacup, and Belial pours him a fresh cup. “They deserve it. All of them.” They thought they could dance on his skeleton and that he wouldn’t notice. They thought that a young boy didn’t mean a thing. They thought wrong, all of them, and he will make them pay. 

But first. “Where’s the jam?”

Belial doesn’t ask him which kind, he’s already gotten up to get the strawberry and has returned with cream too. Lucilius scoops up a heavy serving of both onto his scone and chews in silence. Belial watches him, grinning, like he finds the idea of Lucilius doing dumb boring things to be amusing. 

“I’m with you until the end,” Belial tells him. “And beyond that, too.”

Stupid words for stupid lies. Promises that belong on love letters. Rubbish. When Belial first told him that, Lucilius was sure that he was lying. Now, he’s not so sure. 

* * *

Hands aren’t holding. Lips aren’t touching. Thoughts aren’t running.

For all his intents, for all _his_ purposes, there is simply no reason to get out of bed today.

Then Lucilius recalls his eruptive purpose in the world, and he stirs with a deep groan. Belial’s hand is on his hip before he can even move; when he moves, the fingers wrap tight.

“Stay,” Belial says, his voice a low rumble in the back of his throat.

There is no staying. To remain would be to stay the execution of all those who need to perish. Chaotic trains of thought a-jumble, Lucilius sits up and stretches, curving his spine and thrusting his hands above his head. He makes a quick noise,

And Belial licks his lips, drinking it all up. “Well, if you’re going to make cute noises, I guess I can allow it.”

“Do not begin to fathom,” Lucilius threatens through a yawn, “That you could tell me what to do.”

“No, no. My love.” Belial clicks his tongue in mock pity when Lucilius falls back onto the mattress, welcoming him with a strong embrace. “You're so tired."

”Stop."

Belial chuckles into his neck.

Some men were made to be greater than the rest; Lucilius does not count himself among them. But he is an outlier, just the same as his spousal ghoul. His whole body feels of dried sweat and fluids leaking down the side of his thigh. He is deep, bone-tired, and an instinct not unlike the voice of his brother tells him to consider a day of rest. It is the Lord’s day, after all.

Lucilius kicks his way out of bed. Belial remains, digging out a cigarette from his pants, slung over the nightstand.

“Thanks,” Belial hums when Lucilius leans down with a lighter. His eyes are lidded and he looks like he’s thinking about last night. Lucilius, by contrast, has the muddled insults of ‘morning people’ in his head. Belial pricks up when Lucilius drags out a stick for himself, lights it on the end of the first cigarette. The occasion is rare for them to indulge. Lucilius has his eyes trained on their lips for a full moment before he pulls away.

He stumbles and starts around the room, half-heartedly putting himself together. The black shirt that slips over his head is too big to be his own. He fumbles with the buttons, not used to the flaps on the right side, not when all of his shirts are tailor-made for a man who uses his left hand. Ash drips from his mouth and onto the rug. After several minutes of his lazy fussing, Belial extinguishes his cigarette and stands up.

“This is cute. You’re cute,” he swears, pushing his lips into Lucilius’ hair while he reaches out and finishes up the buttons. “You haven’t worn any of my shirts since Rome.”

“That was out of necessity,” Lucilius bites. Rain, splashing water from cars that didn’t know their names. Belial had laughed and surrendered the upper half of his clothing. Lucilius ordered a hit on three plate numbers when they got back to their hotel room.

“And now?”

Lucilius glares at his shirt, thrown all the way across the room. Belial moves away like he’s going to retrieve it, but he just dives into their armoire instead. He pulls out a fresh tie, a fresh red stola, a pinstripe suit that came as a wedding gift from the esteemed Donna Djeeta. Others knew, of course; she was the only one who cared to flaunt her knowledge.

He’s musing through his thoughts on lineage and how much he hates the other families while Belial gets him dressed. He does up all the buttons on Lucilius’ suit, just how he likes. He places the stola across his shoulders with the greatest of care, and the tie, knotting it high on Lucilius’ neck.

His husband gives it a tug and a smile. “I’m not going to let you collar me in bed,” Lucilius warns, and to that, Belial chuckles.

“I was just thinking that you looked good. You look right.”

“Not yet.”

“Sure we can’t just stay in today?”

“Are you sure you can keep your hands off the thief Catherine for a week?”

“No promises,” Belial answers, methodically tossing Lucilius his holsters. These, at least, he fits on himself with swiftness. Karambits disappear under his jacket and the pistol settles at his shoulder. “The Violet Smoke entices me.”

Belial only nearly misses having Lucilius put out his cigarette on his arm. He clothes fast, ‘ready-to-bolt-after-a-one-night-stand’ fast, but only because Lucilius doesn’t appreciate him idling.

Claudia raps at the door. Dorothy calls out sweetly, “Don, we humbly bring you the morning’s messages!”

“Breakfast, as well,” Claudia adds. After a pause, “Are you decent, Belial?”

“Just stunning, sweetheart.”

“Dorothy, slip his letters under the door.”

“The second deserves the same respect as our patron!” Dorothy argues.

Lucilius grunts.

The maids sweep the door open a crack and shuffle through, all without a wrinkle to their clothes. They offer a customary bow, though Dorothy’s breaks while she shuffles through the first letter atop the silver platter. “Direct from… Mr. Sandalphon!”

Lucilius grunts louder.

Belial whistles.

Well then.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1Cadavere senza valore = "A worthless corpse."  [ return ]  
> 


	2. away you go

After all the undecorated expletives, Belial comes upon the heart of the letter: a threat.

"You think this is pre-emptive?" Belial says chattily. He loops an arm around Lucilius' shoulders that immediately gets thrown off. "Little Sandy trying to get us to back off so he and his friends can claim territory?"

"Of course not, you buffoon." Neither of them are thinking on that wavelength; Belial is throwing out impossible ideas to be funny. "He would bear more of a threat if he had left his name unsigned. He knows."

Which means Lucifer knows.

Belial dispenses with the fantasy. "Asking to meet face-to-face is practically a death sentence."

"Not if Lucifer is going to be watching."

"Doesn’t say anything about Lucifer," Belial quips, folding the letter back up in genuine confusion.

Lucilius is two steps ahead and with a temper raging hot. The toy only has power thanks to his connection to Lucifer. And now he thinks he can play hero, get vengeance.

"You will go," Lucilius says. Belial gives him a surprised look. Dishes clatter when Lucilius steps away from their lunch table. "And I will take care of Lucifer."

Belial glances at him with a glimmer of hope. What a complete idiot. "For good?"

Lucilius glowers. "For as long as it takes you to dispose of his toy."

"Oookay…"

* * *

“How did you get all of this?” Gran marvels at the small but plentiful assortment of food on the table; three different kinds of link sausage, roasted potatoes, raspberries, sunny side up egg with the yolk slightly running. 

Sandalphon’s apron’s ties are coming loose, and he smells faintly of smoke. “The market was having a sale,” he replies, half truth and half lies.

Noa slaps Gran’s hand when Gran tries to grab a raspberry, smiles and says thank you. “Did Miss Gabriel help?” he asks, and Sandalphon feels the heat rising to his face.

Even worse when Gabriel peeks her head out of the kitchen, giggling. “Not me this time. But some eggs nearly got burnt.”

“It wasn’t that bad,” Sandalphon grumbles.

There are no complaints when they all dig in. It’s been a long time since they all ate together, snacks on the floor aren’t the same. He would do anything for them. He’d walk the hard path if it meant these breakfasts could continue. Protecting them means protection from a truth that could hurt them. Protection from the truth also means that he doesn’t trust them to handle the truth. In their gathering, he may have become something like a leader, but he’s not going to put his suffering on a scale.

“I’m meeting with someone later,” he finally says, “someone dangerous.”

The clattering or utensils slows. He feels plenty of eyes on him, probing. 

“So is this supposed to be a sending off?” Noa asks. 

Karteira gives him a knowing, worried glance from the corners of her eyes. She holds her tongue, having long figured out that silence is more valuable than babble. He’s grateful.

“No. But… I don’t know how this is going to turn out. It could just be a headache. It could…” He doesn’t want to say it, speak the words into existence. “...I just wanted to warn you. I don’t want you to think that I went to get myself killed.”

“Do you have to do this?” Noa asks.

He wouldn’t be doing this if he thought there was any other way. “Yes.”

“And what if something goes wrong?” Sariel’s voice, blunt, cuts through Sandalphon’s hesitations. “What do you want us to do?”

They’re all kids of the street, so they all know what’s out there. Live your life, make your name, die in a gutter somewhere. 

Family is someone to keep close to you. Family will above all else, remember you when you die to the streets. They'll get even. Sandalphon knows that if he asks, they'll do it. They'll take revenge. But—

He grips his arms. But if he does that, then that'll become their problem. The Astrale will hunt them down too. If they were willing to kill him to get to Lucifer, then they'll happily make the rest of his family pay too. And already-- the memory of Gabriel cutting ingredients for curry in the kitchen, back to him so he wouldn't see her cry— cuts. 

"No. Not this time. It's just a warning."

The tension on their expressions show that they're not pleased. Neither is he, but he knows that dangerous people have no concerns about who they trample. His family, his precious family? They're just names and metrics. He can't risk that, under any circumstances. 

Arusha clears her throat. "Then come back."

Gran gives a strong, "Yeah!" and the rest chime in. It was really something as simple as that. 

Sandalphon bows his head, mutters a thanks that none of the others can hear. He will come back to them. He won't let the Astrale have their way, not with Lucifer, not with him.

He has something to live for, and he won't go down that easily.

* * *

Radio check. He's with Twewyn today, and she spots the blinking light on his radio before the static reaches his ears, and responds for him. He dawdles idly by the parking meter as she replies to the dispatcher, telling them whatever they need to hear. It's just a regular patrol, and nothing of note happened. 

Twewyn has better eyes than the lot of them, but she still talks with her hands when they're on patrol together. It's not necessary, but he appreciates it. This is a route that he's not used to, but she still points out the places to hide, and the best places to grab lunch. 

Lucifer loves the sunlight; he loves how it warms the shapes of his face and the crevices he didn't know were hidden when he steps into a shy beam. He loves how the day brings out the best in people, how they go outside to find a little bit of happiness, instead of the night where they go out to bury their secrets. He especially loves how it turns Sandalphon's locks golden at the peak, bright and beautiful. 

He wants to call out, but Sandalphon has his back to him, as he walks up the stone stairs into an old church. Strange, he didn't know Sandalphon was religious. It's strange, but stranger is when he makes his way over and catches sight of a car parked nearby. 

The car is black, a common enough model, but he recognizes something by the shift; a folded up red stola. If only he could say it didn't thrust his heart into his throat, that it didn't cut open his brain and spill memories out of it, if only that plain red stola didn't have a clumsy constellation stitched on the end of it. If only that clumsy handiwork wasn't his, him who didn't know the difference between regular thread and embroidery thread, who spent a night stitching shapes after he knew his cousin had a bad day—

It's parked at the end of the block, and that could be anything. A coincidence. Who's to say that he couldn't just have been overreacting, and stepped into one of the nearby stores to buy some cheese? But the church Sandalphon stepped into is so close and what if, what if—

"Lucifer?" Twewyn calls, but he's already running. 

"Call for backup!" he yells, and his voice is scratchy but the words come across enough. 

He can't just barge through the front. If his intrusion wouldn't scare Sandalphon, then it would scare his cousin. Dangerous people become even more deadly when they're frightened. 

Around the side of the church is a fire escape that leads up a flight of stairs to a locked door. It creaks under his weight, and the padlock keeping the door shut doesn't budge. The lock breaks under the handle of his gun, and he forces the door open. Please, let it just be an overreaction. And if it isn't— let him arrive fast enough to protect Sandalphon. 

* * *

Everyone has the same reaction when you put a gun to the back of their head. Lucifer stills on the spot, clutching the railing of the balcony. He does not raise his hands.

Lucifer, so beautiful, pale skin reflected seven different shades by the high stained glass windows, carries the same tone of voice he always used as a child. That hasn't changed— the careful placement of words, the steady reserve. "I am not a threat."

Careful, but not the answer he wants. Lucilius keeps his gun steady while he roots through Lucifer's belt, his arm holster, throwing his weapons to the ground. Below, the conversation continues unabated. Lucilius needs those eyes up, away, and not trained on him.

He presses the butt of his pistol against the back of Lucifer's neck, and his eyes obediently gaze up at the decorated ceiling.

The toy picked a cathedral for his attempt at evening the score. How thematic.

Dear, dear Lucifer, who possesses more strength in one muscle than Lucilius does in his entire body, continues, "I am not a threat. Do not hurt him and nothing will come of this."

Lucifer, dear Lucifer, always telling the truth. He's seen Belial's face already. Not many people get to regard him and live after.

The hushed voices of Belial and Sandalphon carry hollow up to the balcony, but Lucilius is too trained on his cousin, and Lucifer can't hear it anyway. A knock to the back of the head won't do; he'll have Lucilius on the ground in seconds.

Lucilius, with an entire plan laid out before him, every moment calculated beforehand— stalls.

Sandalphon's anger reaches a fever pitch down below. Belial can hold his attention but not for long. Lucifer isn't letting go of the balcony. He's not about to let himself be escorted out of the hall. He knows Sandalphon will be a body if he does.

Crown of thorns. Bullet through the head. It's the easy solution. It's the only solution.

"...Cousin?" Lucifer guesses, and a hollow smile creeps to his face when Lucilius stiffens. "Ah… it would only be you."

"..."

"Why are you doing this? Sandalphon is not a threat."

 _But he is,_ Lucilius screams in his head. His grip tightens. “Why are you here?” he rumbles, leaning in the tiniest bit. Lucifer opens his mouth but Lucilius continues, “What have you told him?”

“Nothing.”

“What do you know?”

“Nothing.”

Lucilius sips in a breath, thumb posed on the safety of his pistol. “Why are you here?” he asks again, something dark curling in his stomach when Lucifer looks down again.

“I was worried,” Lucifer says, honest to his forever fault. “He was acting strange.”

“You followed him here,” Lucilius surmises. Lucifer gives a nod. Dear, dear Lucifer, did not leave everything behind when he abandoned the family. “You knew about the shot.”

“You… lured Sandalphon to this place to kill me,” Lucifer says slowly. 

Dear, dear, dear Lucifer. Poor Lucifer, who startles when Lucilius laughs low, leaning his head against the muscles of his upper back. “To kill you?” Perish the thought. Burn the entire cathedral down for the sheer disgust he feels at the thought. “Look, Lucifer. Your man came here of his own volition.”

In the down below, Sandalphon has pulled some sort of bladed implement, the metal glinting in the fading light. Lucifer’s shoulders rise up with tension at the sight. His eyes drift to the man spinning circles of deceit across the pews.

“Who…”

“That,” Lucilius hums, “is Belial. He is my husband, and the end of your story.”

Lucifer visibly knits his brows, head turned the slightest towards Lucilius, his mouth moving fruitlessly. Their eyes lock for an intense moment.

In absolute bewilderment, Lucifer says, “Congratulations,” just as Sandalphon lunges for Belial.

Then the world explodes into soundless light.

* * *

There are worms crawling inside his eyeballs. He has the constant, pressing urge to vomit.

Still, Lucilius keeps his cool, staring firmly forward. Foolish, to not have acclimated himself to the effects of stun grenades. How could he have been so foolish?

The man at his side and the man in front of him are both his answer.

“—I’m telling the truth! I’ve got nothing to do with this. Just an innocent and very sexy bystander who happened to wander in,” Belial is saying. He presses his thigh against Lucilius’, and Lucilius stares into the red-and-blue flashing lights, resisting the need to dry-heave.

“Even so, there was a weapon trained on you,” Lucio continues softly. Perhaps, if Lucilius loosed the contents of his dinner onto him, he would finally get the message and leave.

“We have the right to detain you for as long as we feel necessary,” his blonde sidekick hammers ruthlessly.

“You know, I’m not sure that’s true,” Belial hums, fluttering his eyelashes. The woman is unaffected.

“If such a need exists, then we will make it so.” She clicks her pen with a ruthlessness against her clipboard, _click-clack_ ing away in uniform-breaking heels. Belial mutters a ‘scary’ under his breath.

Lucio turns back to him. Lucilius continues to refuse his stare. The chief of police, with the patience of a saint, sadly turns again to Belial. “If and when you are cleared of all suspicion, we will let you go. You don’t know the man beside you?”

Lucifer’s been hanging back, drifting around the barrier the police have set up, refusing to get close to either Lucilius or Sandalphon. Lucilius feels the stake driven in a little more every time his eyes flit to the rat and not to his cousin. Even so, he’s had no chance to loosen his tongue. Surely.

Belial, soaking in the icy heat radiating off his boss, answers smoothly. “The only thing I know is that I’m seeing double, and I like it.”

Lucilius can’t even kick him in this scenario. Lucio eyes him with pity, and he considers, once again, the option of heaving up onto his pressed suit. “If that’s so… Shalem.”

“Yes, Chief?”

“This man…”

“Elia Scutari,” Shalem, the woman from earlier supplies, a name dug up from their fake IDs when their possessions were confiscated.

“Mr. Elia has already been checked for wounds?”

“He is quite fine and ready for questioning, sir,” Shalem says, a dark glow in her otherwise dispassionate eyes.

“Oh-ho!” Belial interrupts, legs jumping up, lifting slightly the edge of the ambulance cabin where they sit.

“Remove him to another car and bring him in,” Lucio instructs.

“Toodle-loo,” Belial sings to Lucilius, dancing his fingers behind his back in an attempt at a wave. The absence of glitter from his hand means he’s already slid his ring into a secret pocket. The cuffs are just for show.

Lucilius rubs his wrists uncomfortably against his back and does the same. They’ll strip him of his clothing later, but it matters not.

Lucio leans in, now that they sit and stand alone. The air thrums with electricity, with the quiet pulses of walkie-talkie beeps, the grumble of officers who would rather be at home in bed.

“‘Mr. Luca Abate,’” the chief recites off of the photocopied licence Shalem had handed him. Slowly, he breaks out into a soft smile. It imitates Lucifer’s, but it’s too hollow, too vacant. “Little brother, little brother, I thought you renounced the faith?”

Yes, he had, in a rather dramatic display with pentagrams and blood offerings when he was eleven. The look of horror on Lucio’s face then keeps him from physically lunging at the man now. Lucilius remains silent.

“Mr. Lucilius,” Lucio corrects, “Mr. Lucilius A. Dei. I find it most regrettable we meet under these circumstances.”

The little brother takes a deep breath and recounts his self-defence training. Should he sweep Lucio’s feet from under him, he would have guns trained on him in seconds— but a swift stomp to the back of the neck could end his life swiftly, painfully, or at the very least knock him out. If he rolled on his back, then he could crush his throat instead, make sure a voice never came out of those lips ever again—

Above him, Lucio puts on an act of great sadness as he begins. “You are hereby under arrest for the unlawful act of breaking and entering, unlawful possession of a firearm, intent to use deadly force against a law enforcement officer…”

The list goes on. Lucilius shuts his eyes.

He considers whether he can drown to death on his own saliva and end his own misery.

* * *

He wants to die.

Figuratively, literally, metaphorically, whichever option will bury him in the ground so he never has to see Lucifer look disappointed in him ever again. Everything had seemed so simple, the world had been so _red_ … and this is what he stands to gain from it all.

It’s not just a slap on the wrist and another mark on his record, now. They’re telling him about charges, assault with a deadly weapon. He shoots a glare in the direction of the Astrale leader, too far separated from him to see, now. When the officer pulls him back with a commanding tone of voice, Sandalphon has to fight the urge to snap in his face.

All he knows is this:

  1. This entire thing feels like a coup. For who, or why, he doesn’t know. It can’t be him— right?
  2. There’s way too many police here for just a simple street brawl.
  3. Lucifer is going to break up with him as soon as this is over, and his life has ended.



…Except that last one might not even be true. Sandalphon droops a little more when he thinks about whatever was _solid_ in his relationship with Lucifer has now surely crumbled into dust. Every time a glimpse of white hair skims by, he looks up with bated breath, but he only sees the man from afar.

He knew… somehow. He knew Sandalphon was going to come here, even if he didn’t know he was going to try to stab one of the heads of Society. Sandalphon’s not sorry for what he’s done, only for the consequences to come.

Gran is going to have a fit when he’s not there in the morning. Sandalphon grunts to choke back the sudden panicked noise that rises out of his chest. Gabriel, and Noa, and Sariel, and… his shoulders hitch up with the weight of it all. He feels very small, very nauseous, and once again seeks only to retreat beneath the covers of his familiar bed. That bed will not be where he falls asleep tonight, if he can ever manage to shake the disappointed Lucifer behind his eyes.

“You are not obligated to say anything at this point of time without legal counsel,” the officer before him is saying, brushing lilac hair further into her eye, “But be aware that any evidence you can offer in your defence at this time will extradite the pre-criminal proceedings.”

Sandalphon bites his tongue. The small woman regards him with a twinkle of pity in her eye.

“Your timbre is so stale and frightened…”

 _Well, no shit_ , he tries not to say. Run-ins with the law have never been like this. He’s gotten a slap on the wrist, a verbal or physical beat-down, or even a night in holding depending on the officers’ moods. But it’s never been this explosive. And Lucifer was never there.

Lucifer…

Paining himself, Sandalphon sweeps the busy air and tries to find Lucifer in the group once again. He glances at the white brush of hair back against the flashing lights, regarding papers with a consternated look on his face. His brow is furrowed, and he tilts his head toward a woman with red hair, her delicate lips moving along voicelessly beneath the chatter and the shatter of everything else. Maybe they’re talking about what a disappointment Sandalphon is, he considers— and he slumps.

“Take care,” the officer hums, patting him on the knee.

 _If only Lucifer wasn’t here_ , Sandalphon muses, a thread of agony running through his thoughts. He’s hauled to his feet roughly, biting back spitfire as he’s manhandled. His hands are already bound behind his back and his razors are long gone. All he’s got is his pride and his legs, and both stumble over the dirty cobblestone.

 _If only Lucifer wasn’t here_ , Sandalphon thinks dazedly as he’s booked into the back of a police car. He wants to lay on his side but the tight position of his arms won’t permit him to be comfortable. Some other officer starts driving him away from the scene, separate from the Astrale leader. Separate from Lucifer. Sandalphon throws his head back against the seat.

“What time is it?” he sighs. The officer doesn’t answer. A surge of anger slams through him. _If only_ , “I’m **talking** to you. What time is it?” _Lucifer wasn't here_.

“We can always tack on another charge for interfering with an officer’s line of duty,” the man at the front of the car warns him. Sandalphon stews in charged silence for several seconds before he supplies, “It’s 0300 hours. 14 past. 3:14 AM for you.”

Gabriel will be up in an hour and forty-six minutes. Breakfast will be started an hour after that. They’ll try to rouse him at 7, and he’s probably only got two hours until they figure out what’s happened.

 _If only Lucifer wasn’t here_ , his mind accuses. No—

“Got any more back talk?” the officer beckons, trying to provoke him into further jail time. Sandalphon grits his teeth. “That’s what I thought.”

 _Lucifer should have never been there_.

The fire roaring in him consumes his lovelorn bridges, though truthfully, they were already burned.

* * *

Lucilius played with handcuffs when he was young, just to see how easily he could pick the locks. There’s no way he can pick his way out of these ones. They will keep him in holding until his spirit weakens, and then they’ll haul him off to the courts. Just because the days where someone would beat a confession out of him are long gone doesn’t mean there aren’t tactics in place. They’ve already taken away his clothes and have put him in something boxy and loose. The room is too large, too much space for someone who doesn’t take up much. The openly armed guards behind him put his already slim chances at a proper null, but they’re still apart from him, like he’s diseased. 

Lucio entering only turns Lucilius’ stomach. As if someone fed him bleach, Lucilius curls his tongue inside his mouth and battles his rage and nausea. Uncaring, Lucio crosses the room and takes a seat across from Lucilius. He is even more revolting up close; image perfectly touched up, uniform pressed and ironed, soft hands tipped by manicured nails. A charming face mirroring his own, and blue eyes ice-cold. 

Disgusting. Lucilius pays attention to the guards instead. But even that’s torn away when Lucio waves his hand and dismisses the guards from the room. 

“There’s nobody listening in. No cameras, either.”

Lucilius clicks his tongue and gazes silently at the wall where he knows the one way panel of glass is. It’s exhausting even keeping his head up when Lucio is in the room. 

“Do you still like sweets?” Lucio’s voice is warm and intrusive. “You always liked chocolate, especially the chocolatier from down the street.”

The muscles in the back of Lucilius’ neck stiffen. 

“They were too big for you to eat at once. The owner used to make such nice displays out of them. Remember when we went there, just the two of us?”

It was too big. He didn’t know chocolate could be sculpted into all these different shapes. All he had was some change in his pocket, but Lucio brought bills and bought Lucilius a milk chocolate violin. It was too big to fit in his hands at the time, and the chocolate melted against his palms as he struggled to eat it all—

A clatter. The chains securing his handcuffs to the table are already taut. Lucilius feels the sting of the handcuffs biting into his wrists and eases his arms forward, just for a bit. Inhale. Exhale. Push that blue fire deep down. 

A slender key shines from between Lucio’s fingers, and fits snugly into the lock on Lucilius’ handcuffs. His raw skin stings in the exposed air, and Lucilius rubs some feeling back into his wrists. He knows Lucio freeing him isn’t because Lucio trusts him, but is a display of power. If he runs, Lucilius won’t make it out of here unharmed. 

Words come out of Lucilius’ mouth, but he can barely make them out, like they’re being spoken by someone on a beach, straining their ear against the wind to hear someone on the other side. “What do you want?”

"I just wanted to talk." Lucio’s face shifts into something that resembles a bittersweet smile, more bitter than sweet. "I can't remember the last time I saw you. It may be unfortunate that we had to meet again like this, but I couldn’t see you go without—"

"Am I supposed to thank you for making me the exception to your ironclad rules? Should I bow my head in joy?"

Lucio looks vaguely sad, but who knows how deep that feeling actually goes. "I really did miss you. But as I'm sure you understand, we can’t be seen together. It would destroy everything I’ve built up.”

“Don’t pretend that you’re interested in me all of a sudden.”

"Why would you think I'm not?" Once he sees Lucilius turned away, nails scraping at his wrist, Lucio clues in. "Are you still upset?"

"Did you think I'd just forget?"

Lucio inhales sharply, closing his eyes. “No.”

“If you understand that, then you’re wasting my time. Get out of my sight.”

“A lot of high-ranking family members have become corpses lately. People in high places, who have protections. Quite familiar too. All people who turned on our father and left our family for dead.”

His heart is pounding in his chest, but all Lucilius feels is a dark sun burning. “Are you saying they deserved to live?”

A coldness blooms across Lucio, one that contrasts horribly with the serenity on his face. “I’m not saying that.”

Lucio would know the names, they both would. Back when their home echoed gunfire and their father pushed them into an unmarked car, all they had was confusion and each other. All their allies were enemies, all their enemies would happily see their heads torn off their bodies. It didn’t matter if they were young. It was better off if they were; the young are easily moldable and forget the truth in chaos. They’d been sent to one of their father’s acquaintances, where they were supposed to be protected, if protection meant being paraded around and being turned into props to secure their acquaintance's rise to power. But they were young, and people think that when children ask questions, they’re aimless and not calculated and probing. In the room they shared, in their plush cage, their minds tied the strings of names together and promised to never forget.

“They turned on father because they became greedy,” Lucio says. “They wanted power. They all did.” He gleams iridescent, but with loathing, the glimmer of diamonds haze into the rainbow of oil. “Do you still hate them?”

“All of them,” Lucilius mumbles. 

“I have a plan.”

Lucio always has something planning. “Your reformations?” Lucilius spits out. 

“They were long overdue,” Lucio points out, and he isn’t wrong. The only reason that the power hungry were able to mobilize against the Astrale was because they paid the police to turn away. “A more just, honorable force is better for the life blood of the city. They won’t be as willing to take bribes, and will work hard. They won’t bite the hand that feeds them. If we were torn down, it was for a reason. But the roots are still rotten. But you trust me, don’t you?” His voice trails off as Lucilius sits silent, staring, barely moving, hardly blinking. “You are still angry…” Lucio mumbles, eyes flitting down, realizing he was now the target of Lucilius’ ire. 

Lucilius pulses hate, but it has crystallized in the fire. “I will never trust you ever again,” he promises, toneless as a knife slowly humming along steel. “You never bothered at first. Then you abandoned everything.”

Lucio, smiles, sadly. “It had to be done.”

He flinches when a chair nicks his cheek before it goes crashing against the wall. Lucilius blazing, hands shaking, fangs grinding, breath short and smoky. 

Lucio wipes at the blood. It’s not a deep wound. “You may be my brother, but I can’t ignore you pulling a deadly weapon in a public place. You are no exception to the law. You will be assigned a public defender, and then very likely, you will go to prison. You will be set free eventually. And by then, you’ll see how the city has become a much better place.”

The guards come back into the room. They throw the handcuffs back on, drag him out of the room, but no violence will quell the murder in Lucilius’ gaze. 

* * *

Endless. Endless frustration. The time had been an eternity but in the end, it had only been three weeks. He went through the motions of officer, judge, trial, officer, back and forth between one tiny space and the next. The holdings were cramped, the food was mild, and his cellmate had been too provocative to be of any real malicious threat. No bail, no visits— both things he’d refused.

Sandalphon, who has had his head buried in his knees for most of the past twenty-one days, jerks unpleasantly when they haul him into the trial chambers yet again. His hands are cuffed to his belt, as usual. The judge demands he look her in the eyes and Sandalphon does, reluctantly.

“Owing to extenuating circumstances,” the judge says, “You’re to be released on probation and kept on close monitor for the next six months by a police officer. You will wear an ankle monitor and be confined to a chosen homestead. Don’t give me that look.”

Sandalphon wipes the snarl from his face. She didn’t say _his home_ , and there’s a purpose for that. They’re keeping him from his family, the same family he refused to see when they came for visitation. He refused them, yes, but—

“I expect you to show proper humility and gratitude to the officer who’s chosen to take on monitoring you. Your conduct demands at least five years minimum in a correctional facility. This man argued quite passionately for your removal to a holding house.”

Sandalphon’s stomach flutters just the same as his heart sinks. It can’t be.

The judge nods to someone behind him, and Sandalphon whips his head around.

Lucifer.

“No,” Sandalphon says immediately.

Lucifer knits his brows. The judge continues on, unfazed. “Mr. Confortola,” she says, making Sandalphon flinch at a name he hasn’t heard in years. “This is not your home, and we are not your parents. You do not get to argue with the court of law. You will turn to the officer and you will say ‘thank you,’ or I’ll remove you to holding to carry out your five-year sentence.”

Sandalphon debates just that. He licks his lips.

The judge— Sandalphon vaguely registers her nameplate, _Forte_ — gestures impatiently with her gavel. “The officer is hard-of-hearing. Face him when you speak.”

In his protest, Sandalphon does everything except that. He thinks about Noa, and the screwed-up face, the bitten lip he must have worn when Sandalphon wouldn’t come see him. He remembers all of Gabriel’s disappointed sighs, the ones that raised him up. Gran crosses his mind, and all of the terror he must be creating in Sandalphon’s absence.

Sandalphon turns to Lucifer. Lucifer regards him, separate from the other officers, a firm look on his face.

“Thank you,” he grits out, and something loosens in Lucifer’s hard expression. He nods.

“Now, was that so hard?” The judge Forte says, making Sandalphon bite back a retort. She gives a slam of her gavel and the entire courtroom begins to move. “This trial is adjourned. The related officers will deliver the defendant to be processed out of his current facility. Next on the docket…”

Sandalphon is ushered away by a commanding grip, and Lucifer follows right behind. His fingers ball up into fists against his hips.

He doesn’t want this pity. He doesn’t want anything kind or good. He just wants to fight, and he wants Lucifer to know the brunt of all of his hurt.

* * *

They put Sandalphon uptown, into a little bunker of a home with white-painted walls starting to fade to an old, tepid yellow. There’s not a lot of windows but somehow, sunlight creeps in and does its dirty work anyway.

He’d assumed nothing more than a milder sort of hell: perhaps Lucifer would come to check on him once a day, escort him to probational meetings once a month. But it’s 9 AM when Lucifer arrives and Sandalphon realises, with the growing creep of horror,

“You’re _staying_?” he chokes out, the sound buried by Lucifer sliding a suitcase through the door. It doesn’t matter anyway. Lucifer isn’t even looking at him.

Sandalphon studies his back when he bends to assess the contents of his luggage. He’s without his officer’s uniform and just in a v-neck tee, black pants and a belt with the simplest of police instruments. He’s got a radio, a bunch of keys, but no holster— and Sandalphon finds himself trembling.

This could’ve been them, in a better time. Replace the ankle monitor with a stupid bracelet Noa would give him as a going-away present. Uncross his arms, turn Lucifer’s head towards him. Take the air out of the room with its sour notes, replace it with the affectionate thrum of new and nervous lovers.

This could’ve been them but that chance is squashed now, ground out beneath the heel of the Astrale leader and his own stupidity. “I could kill you,” Sandalphon announces into the air. He studies the curve of Lucifer’s spine, feels his fingers splay out in want— then crushes them back into fists, nails biting into his palms. “You should have never followed me. You don’t even know what’s going on. You’ve never…”

Sandalphon bites his lip, even as he confesses the worst to a man who can’t even hear him. “You’ve never understood.” And that was only ever his own fault, too scared to mar the growing _something_ between them with the impurities of gang life. “You’ve never understood,” he repeats, sadly, speaking more to himself now.

Lucifer begins to turn. Sandalphon stands up straight, as if lightning has struck him, and stomps out of the room.

He’s got a small bedroom without windows and no lock on the door. He throws himself into the thin mattress of the bed and clutches a pillow to his chest.

He mutters dark words into the fabric without intention, biting back the frustration of growing tears.

* * *

He's putting much on the line, with this. He knows that. Feower had raised an eyebrow at his request, much as the rest of them had, but only he had the bluntness to call him out. "He's a career criminal, Lucifer. What do you get out of protecting him?"

Lucifer had shook his head because he couldn't explain and Feower still didn't know many signs. The answer was simple.

The answer is still simple: _This is my fault._

If he had contacted his cousin sooner… if he had moved more quickly on the threat, they would not have felt the need to bring Sandalphon into this mess. The footsteps that had led him to trailing Sandalphon pushed a coursing flame of betrayal between them. But Sandalphon is still alive, and that's what matters.

Surprisingly, Sandalphon joins him at the small dining table the second morning of his detention. Lucifer raises to his feet to make him a cup of coffee; Sandalphon stays where he is, blankly studying the files Lucifer has laid out across the table.

A lot of it is Sandalphon's own history with the law. Some of it is more recent, however, crisp black files countering the faded manila placed at the very top. Lucifer winces; perhaps he feels his privacy is violated, his detailed history laid bare in incident reports and the uneven scrawl of the old guard.

Sandalphon stares flatly as the cup laid out in front of him. Lucifer dances his fingers nervously, then returns his eyes to his work. His reading of the past is abandoned for the more recent event, the changing tides of the underground, new obfuscated murders of mafioso and titled men alike. There's never any suspect apprehended. Such is the style… nay, the power, of his cousin.

He feels a little sick going over each page. He has to sign off on every last page to show that he's reading and keeping himself up to date in the midst of his monitoring duties. He's being paid to collect literature of death and his very own… solace.

Eventually the updates are exhausted. Seofon has added his own hasty scribbles from their minutes, the meetings he's been missing out on. With the head of the Merkmal perished and the politician Istavion similarly indisposed, the territories and the allied bonds of their underground are going to come fraying apart.

He swallows thickly. Lucilius should have never wanted this. Lucilius is in detention, now, in a maximum security facility, but his plans are moving forward without him. Just how many—

A rattle of the table disturbs him. Sandalphon stands up messily, looking like he means to leave. In reality, he begins to pace, unruly and chaotic. The agitation leaks into Lucifer's mood, too, and he raises his shoulders. He reaches out a hand,

But Sandalphon slaps it away. "Do you like it?" he's saying, or at least Lucifer thinks he is, because he's turning around and around, trying to wear out the carpet beneath his feet. Lucifer trails his every move. "—knew what was going on, you—" He touches his hearing aids, but even turning them up to the most sensitive just increases the whine in his ears, drowning out more of Sandalphon's muttering.

In the end, Sandalphon fixes the issue for him. "Why did you call the entire fucking police force?" he shouts, looking Lucifer dead-on. Sandalphon does not want to wait for an answer but he must; he diverts his eyes when Lucifer begins to sign, denying him even that basic right.

Lucifer sighs. He waits. Sandalphon drags fingers through his hair, mussing it up, raking nails over his exposed forearms. _Classic symptoms seen in children with anxiety disorders_ , Lucifer recalls from his abnormal psychology courses.

Only when Sandalphon looks at him again does Lucifer say anything. He does it with his hands. He will not be stripped of this.

"What?" Sandalphon says, squinting. Patiently, Lucifer signs again. Sandalphon gives him this comically confused look when Lucifer splays both of his hands towards his chest.

"You were… scared?" he asks, brows furrowing. Lucifer will request a sign language book later, so they can continue Sandalphon's studies.

Slowly, and with many repetitions, he gets the idea across. Lucifer hadn't known where Sandalphon was going, but the text had scared him into action. As soon as he saw Sandalphon enter into the abandoned cathedral, he had radioed for back-up.

Sandalphon looks to be taking it all in until Lucifer tells him that he wasn't expecting the chief of police to come. He screws up his face, and he looks angry again. "You're lying," he accuses. "You have my entire fucking criminal record on the table and you expect me to believe you didn't want to get me arrested? That you weren't trying to humiliate me?"

How could he ever? He's never wanted anything more than to secure Sandalphon in his arms. He opens his mouth but Sandalphon turns away, forcibly ending the conversation.

"Don't talk to me. We're done," he says— probably. Lucifer gets the intent and perhaps not the full breadth of the message.

Lucifer studies his retreating back and sighs deeply. Across the table, Sandalphon's coffee remains untouched.

* * *

On the fifth day of Sandalphon's detention, he joins Lucifer for breakfast. He eats everything put down before him without a word. Just the sight of it is enough to warm Lucifer up after lonely nights curled around more destructive incident reports.

It's the Astrale. He knows. But is it all Lucilius' bidding now that he's out of the way? Or is it the family trying to show that they won't be stopped, even with their missing head?

He's grateful for the distraction Sandalphon provides. Truthfully, he's just glad to have Sandalphon near.

His heart falls when he sees Sandalphon make a difficult expression. However, it's not what he expects. "Who's that?" he asks gruffly, pointing aggressively at the newspaper when Lucifer blinks at him. Ah.

The titular page features a colour photo of Helel, as he cares to be known these days, standing in front of a podium and telling the press about all his staff are doing to fight the ongoing corruption. Lucifer runs a thumb over the grainy photo of his jaw.

"You've been here the whole time," Sandalphon tells him, "How?"

He twists his hand, cupped into the shape of a C, rotating it back and forth near his forehead. Sandalphon's eyes travel away, and then he gets it.

"Your cousin?" he spits. Lucifer nods to his unbelieving face.

Sandalphon says something else, but Lucifer shakes his head— he doesn't know the word out loud. Sandalphon stiffens, and with great pain, he spells it out with his hands.

_Nepotism?_

Lucifer laughs. It's a ghost sound, wispy. Sandalphon stares at him, transfixed.

Helel took charge of the police by sheer force and a little kindness sprinkled in along the way. His ascension to the top some years ago was accompanied by conflict, and outrage, as he quietly ousted every corrupt officer they could find. He instated Seofon as his first officer, and from there, the ranks trickled down with new, honest people. The officers rather proudly called it the Changing of the Guard.

Sandalphon takes it all in slowly, but his eyes light up at the name. "Oh," he says, "You mean the Day of Hell."

_Is that what they call it?_

"Mhm," Sandalphon replies. He has his hands on the table. If he fixates on it, Lucifer can feel the faint vibrations of his voice through the wood. Sandalphon even smiles! It's magic."Silly, right? I always thought it was an exaggeration."

"Why that name?" Lucifer asks out loud.

Sandalphon's smile takes on a razor's edge. "Really? You shattered families. Nobody trusts each other any more. You ruined everything."

He stands up from the table, and with that same difficult smile, he retreats to his room and slams the door. Lucifer can feel its vibrations from afar.

He looks at the picture of his cousin again, frowning ruefully. He's left with troubled thoughts that persist through the night.

* * *

Seeing Sandalphon interact with his family is…

It's wonderful.

Sandalphon hates that Lucifer has to be there, evidenced by the glare he sends him, but the anger appears to fade when he is surrounded by his relations. They're obviously not blood-related, but in that way -- they're closer than Lucilius and Helel and he ever were.

The one with the slouched back and the ant farm (how it got through clearance, he will never know) is Sariel. The tender woman in the rather racy clothing is called Gabriel. He misses the names of the two young boys, mostly because one of them is yelling too loud and sending static through his hearing aids.

Mostly, Lucifer watches Sandalphon. They're at a neutral location, pitched right in between Society and uptown territory. The family send him guarded looks from time to time, but Sandalphon seems to soothe them. His face, however, is torn by an incredible expression of guilt that Lucifer would give anything to make go away.

Through all of Sandalphon's reports, not once did he see mention of any of these people. They have clean records. He wonders if that's just who they are; he wonders, with the growing suspicion that's been tickling him for the last couple weeks of Sandalphon's detention, if it wasn't all on purpose, to protect them.

The brown-haired boy interrupts his thoughts by marching straight up to him and yelling something. Lucifer winces.

"Gran," Sandalphon sighs, "You have to be more quiet. He can't hear you."

Gran looks puzzled. "Shouldn't I be louder then?"

"That's not how it works—"

"Are you Sandy's boyfriend?" Gran asks, at an acceptable volume this time.

Sandalphon visibly appears to choke. He doubles over in a coughing fit.

Lucifer considers the question. He looks longingly at Sandalphon. Sandalphon refuses to return his gaze.

"I suppose I am," he says.

"I KNEW IT!" Gran screeches, and Lucifer holds his ears with a painful wince.

The family all but swarms Sandalphon after that. There are questions that do not reach him. He hears snippets, but otherwise, he stares politely elsewhere. He looks at the camera monitoring their visitation.

The hour comes and goes. The cheer leaves them behind when Sandalphon slips into the back of his black, unmarked car.

"Lucifer," Sandalphon says. It's the first time he's heard his name in a while. His fingers slide off the wheel of the vehicle. He leans over the partition separating the front from the back. Sandalphon looks him dead in the eyes.

He looks… hurt. "Why would you say that?" he asks, making perfectly sure Lucifer can hear him, read his lips.

And for him… Lucifer has no real answer. The silence ticks and rocks until something breaks and Sandalphon laughs, raw and tired. "Forget it. You're a bad liar."

Lucifer returns to the front seat, staring straight ahead. Sandalphon is looking out the window, stubbornly refusing to even turn his head in the direction of the rear-view mirror.

Lucifer swallows. He has done many things wrong.

Their drive back to the holding home is as icy as the air outside.

* * *

_Lucilius' face crinkles, and his eyes glow with interest. He is laughing, and Lucifer is holding his breath._

_"Now, what could ever be so funny?" Lucio asks, joining them under the shade, retreating from the sun. Lucilius' humour vanishes as soon as he speaks. He is withdrawn behind stellar curtains once again._

_"Nothing. It was nothing. Go away," Lucilius says flatly, knowing already that his older brother will not leave them be._

_Lucifer frowns at the charged air. He is not in the running to be the next heir of the family… but neither is Lucilius. What runs between them is not a rivalry. He wonders why._

_"I'm glad to see my little brother is enjoying himself. Thank you, Lucifer, for spending time with him," Lucio says. It's like his time is a commodity._

_He recognises, vaguely, that there is pity on Lucio's face. Before he can contemplate it too long, his twelve-year-old cousin is rising from beneath the gazebo with an alien expression, something so full of primal rage it distorts his face into an unfamiliar shape. "Come, Lucifer," Lucilius orders in a clipped voice, retreating back towards their home. He commands authority, but that is not the reason Lucifer chooses to follow._

_Lucio sighs at their withdrawal. "One day, he will have to speak to me, brother to brother," Lucio says against his back._

_Lucifer doesn't answer. It is, after all, not his place._

_He is just a cousin._

* * *

_Lucilius doesn't emote much, but Lucifer can detect the visible signs of preening when he examines himself in the mirror._

_"I am sorry, cousin," Lucifer says with guilt on his tongue. Lucilius had been so precise with the scissors to his hair, and when he examines himself, every strand is perfect. His own attempt, on the other hand… "Allow me to try again? I can correct this."_

_"No," Lucilius says loudly. Then, quieter, "No. This is perfect." He runs his fingers through the side of his bangs that came out too long, the uneven edges of the rest of it. He's smiling, so happy. So satisfied._

_"Were we not supposed to match?" Lucifer queries softly._

_After a moment, Lucilius shakes his head. "This is better."_

_In the end, the goal was not to match -- it was simply to escape Lucio's grasp, the similarities that plagued them._

_When Lucio had observed them, he had smiled._

_And when Lucio returned with a similar cut not a week later, Lucilius stabbed his scissors into the wall._

* * *

_The room is perfectly still when Lucifer crosses the threshold. "Lucilius?" he calls, to no avail. "Are you not here?"_

_They had plans to play, hadn't they? Though Lucilius is four years his junior, he is wonderfully adept, so serious and studious. He has devoured every book Lucifer has ever brought him._

_The warm thoughts carry Lucifer through the silent room. He skims the bookshelves carefully, eyeing tomes he provided— on the top shelf— and more recent additions, tucked near the middle, where Lucilius can best reach. It's all astrophysics._

_On the bottom are the books he assumes the family provides him. They're educational, familial lineages, math and history and English and everything Lucilius does not care about. They look primarily untouched. Lucifer moves on._

_"Lucilius?" he calls again, brows furrowed in worry. He rounds on the bed and carefully studies the lump there, hidden beneath the sheets._

_It doesn't move. A dark weight sinks to the bottom of his stomach._

_He means to rush over, but an anchour ties his feet, and it is with great effort he takes step by step. The bed is miles away,_

_And then it is not._

_Lucifer hovers over the Lucilius-shaped_ thing _beneath the sheets. His mouth is dry. Lucilius isn't even the heir to the family, and yet, someone -- something has happened, why --_

_He steels himself and pulls at the top sheet. It should come away in one easy go, but it doesn't. There's resistance from what feels like strings, breaking through his fingers, and then there's this clicking sound. Something slotting into place._

_"Luc—"_

_Then the fire._

_It blurs together like a shot of the first ever black hole to be photographed. There's oranges and blues, there's chaos, there's this sensation of flying and wetness all around._

_After some time, Lucifer registers he is on his back._

_Lucifer registers the feeling of nothing._

_Lucifer registers Lucilius, hovering above him, sheer panic dilating his pupils as his mouth moves, and moves, and moves,_

_But Lucifer can't hear it. How odd._

_The adults come later. Lucilius' room is on fire. Someone… someone had…_

_Someone had tried to hurt Lucilius._

_That's all that gets through his skull. He sees Lucio, he thinks, try to pull his little brother into his arms, but Lucilius resists, clinging to him._

_It hurts. His skin is raw and it hurts._

_But it hurts more to see tears streak Lucilius' face, for the first and last time, as he sobs—_

* * *

"I'm sorry."

Lucifer hears those words— probably. The dream dates itself across the beams of sunlight raking through the blinds. He sits up carefully.

A moment later, he registers Sandalphon there. In his room.

Lucifer straightens up. He feels, for the first time in a long time, shy.

He replaces his hearing aids, clears his throat. Sandalphon is looking at his chest. His bare chest. Lucifer feels a bit red. "Sandalphon?"

Sandalphon jerks as if he's been stabbed, as if he was not the one studying Lucifer in his sleep. How long has he been there? Bleary, Lucifer can't even begin to fathom.

"Nothing. It's nothing. Go away." But they're in Lucifer's room. Sandalphon raises his shoulders and says, "Leave me alone." And he stalks out.

Later, when he is dressed for another day of reading police reports, he finds a warm cup of coffee waiting for him on the dining table. Sandalphon is nowhere in sight, but his room is ever so slightly ajar.

With a soft smile, Lucifer brings the cup to his chilly lips. It helps to drive the memories away.

"Thank you," he says to the door.

The door doesn't answer, but warmth radiates from the crack beneath.

* * *

"You," Lucilius hisses, crackle and smoke, "are late."

"Sorry to keep you waiting. I got caught up in things—"

"Enough of your excuses." And just like that, they're back into their old rhythm again. "Get these off."

Belial runs a delicate finger over the cuffs binding Lucilius' hands together. Though the air is blurry and filled with black smoke, Belial's grin shines through. "Mm… but these are _so_ sexy."

Lucilius glares him down.

Sympathetically, Belial coos, "Your wrists must be so sore. And your holes must be pretty lonely. Two months in solitary confinement… did you miss me?"

Lucilius kicks him face-first into the helicopter. He eats metal and chips a tooth. His husband steps over him and takes a graceful seat on the available bench.

There's alarms, there's screaming, there's probably some people hurt or possibly even dead, but all Belial can see is Lucilius.

Lucilius, here and now. Lucilius, gripping his shirt tightly while Belial buckles him in. Lucilius, who tucks his face into Belial's neck when they take off, securing their escape from the prison facility, taking a tight breath as Belial loops an arm around him. How could Belial ever hope to think of anyone else?

"You're late," Lucilius curses, suppressing his brief shiver against the vibrations of the copter.

"I know, and I'm sorry. Really." Belial takes his face in his hands and kisses him, gently. The sun glints sharp through the windows, hitting against the ocean outside. "I came back for you."

He's not imagining the sharp sigh of relief pressed to the inside of his wrist. "And," he adds, "I've been busy while you were on your sabbatical."

Lucilius rolls his cheek into Belial's palm. "Who's next?"

"Your brother."

Lucilius smiles.

Belial kisses him again.

* * *

Lucilius listens to the harrowing report of his own escape on their 4k television. The newscaster promises panic and pressure on the police, all while Belial whistles his way through breakfast in the kitchen. Lucilius curls his legs underneath him, further burying himself into Belial’s sweatshirt. His naked kneecaps brisk in the early morning chill.

The birds are chirping outside. Belial’s wearing a _kiss the cook_ apron, with an arrow pointing down south. 

The hypothesis: the world has turned ever the same, despite his twenty-three hours in a small three-by-three cell.

The evidence: the commercial that comes on for a new sports car. The pile of mail dedicated to him, intentionally collected by Belial, some documents ripped open. Others, untouched, come from one of their fake addresses, courthouse congratulations on their wedding.

The argument: Belial treats his presence with the same-as-ever reverence, messiah come home, tempter rescued from the angels of judgement. He places a tray across from Lucilius on the coffee table and draws his hands over Lucilius’ thighs.

“The maids could have cooked,” Lucilius mutters.

“Dorothy and Claudia are on vacation,” Belial laughs, offering him a glass of wine. Lucilius takes it, swirls it. “And I wanted to celebrate.”

“Celebrate what.”

“You coming back? Hell, I would celebrate you coming.”

But their touches have been brief, and he’s still not sure how much he imagines when Belial makes contact. He thought a lot during those days. He imagined a lot.

The epiphany: like birthdays and leap days and the solar equinox, none of this really matters. He, who wants Belial, and Belial, who wants him, slake their ready thirst on the next target to come.

Belial feeds him cheese and sings against the crown of his hair. Lucilius curls his ten fingers around Belial’s forearm and anchours himself there.

* * *

“So your brother’s gotten taller.”

Lucilius grunts. He has never particularly enjoyed talking about his brother, Belial knows it. His husband is the irritable type, could get annoyed by the wind being stronger than he predicted, but he has very few true sore points.

“I kind of dig the long hair look. Divinity is pretty sexy, would be great to pull on in—”

A finger threads through his tie and yanks him close until their noses brush and Belial can taste the embers on Lucilius’ breath. “Bed him, then. Just make sure you gut him afterward.”

“Stabbing while stabbing? Or stabbing while being stabbed, mm, the possibilities.” But despite his words, he knows Lucilius will never forgive him if he really did try to sleep with Lucio. 

Away from him, Lucilius’ eyes blaze with the heat of the universe collapsing, and Belial’s breath hitches in his throat with adoring fascination. It’s been a long time since he saw Lucilius burn. 

In a place like this, you had two choices: you could sell your skills or you could sell your body. The gun was the easier choice. No regrets. Whatever paid, paid. Some families had more funds than others, some were more close knit, all knew that kids blended into the background and weren’t expected to be life-takers. He ran with this one family for a while, the boss was fun to mess with but also knew that reputation was forged through results and not just with looks or age. 

In a corner of the house, in a square room painted pale green, was a young boy. He wasn’t the boss’ son, he wasn’t a servant, and he wasn’t allowed outside. The room was well-furnished, and it didn’t look like he’d ever run out of entertainment, yet the boss took Belial by the shoulder and told him that he was there to watch the one that didn’t get away. He’d find out later why there were two beds in that square room, that there were two children before, but the eldest one had seen the chaos forged when a fire broke out in the east wing and escaped. If it had been up to Belial, he would have cut the tendons in the kid’s foot and left it at that, but he’d been given orders; he is to be a babysitter. 

There were no illusions in that room. The kid had looked at him like he was part of the wallpaper, like he was just another replaceable face. Belial had gotten doubtful looks, or people sneering at him like he was trash, but nobody had ever looked at him expecting nothing. “Make yourself useful and shut up,” was the first words he heard out of that mouth, toneless and unfeeling. 

And what fun he was! Young master Lucilius would sit in his room all day, sometimes traverse the house to the small library to read the books there, pale and growing paler. He’d refill the boss’ pipe with tobacco when they were in the same room, listen in on meetings, not say a word. He’d shove his papers under his pillow when Belial entered without knocking and tried to claw Belial’s eyes out when Belial forced him down and pried the papers free. Even with his arm twisted to the point of unbearable pain, he still struggled, only to still when Belial told him that the substance he was using in his makeshift bomb wasn’t as volatile as he was expecting. Only once he was free and had his papers back in his hands did he thrust them into Belial’s face and demand him to read. 

Blood and bullets. The uncertainty of tomorrow was always met with the certainty that Lucilius, in his inert body and his whirlwind of a mind, would bring something interesting. Something different. 

The boss choked one day. He smoked his pipe too much, and smoke damages tissue. He had a tough body but his throat wasn’t as strong as he’d have liked. Sometimes tobacco is impure, it happens. When the two of them were back in the square room painted pale green, Lucilius said, “Good,” as his eyes burned like the morning star. 

Belial could torch a hundred buildings and the heat and glow would never be as strong as Lucilius in that moment. And now, the present, that fire’s back, and with the plan in form, that blaze is going to be one for the ages.

“I’m not leaving,” he tells Lucilius quietly, and he feels Lucilius stiffen in his arms.

“We’ll see,” Lucilius says, but Belial knows the hesitant trust in that. 

* * *

There's a knock at the front door. The two of them exchange glances; the maids are on vacation, and nobody but them knows about this location. Belial pushes Lucilius towards the closet and clicks the safety off his gun, sweeping the staircase below. Threat assessment. A key jangles in the lock, echoing in the foyer, and they get their answer when in strides in a woman, acting like she owns the place. "This is your what, fifth home? It's nice!”

Belial tucks the gun back into his holster, and Lucilius pushes past him, stomping down the stairs. "What are you doing here?"

It's already useless to ask how she knows. No secret comes without the possibility of someone seeing. No crime is perfect. If information exists, if there is someone to whisper, then Donna Djeeta will find out. She's always been the bothersome, nosy type. Still, he didn't think she'd come all the way out here. 

"I came to say hi. Heard you got cuffed by the cops."

Lucilius curls his lips over a snarl. Lucilius knows her, but she is a shape that isn't supposed to be here, and unforeseen factors are dangerous. This unforeseen factor strides into the living room and sheds her coat over the back of a wooden chair. 

Belial taps his husband's shoulder, and sidles to his side. "Djeeta, singularity. Don't you know better than to barge into people's homes without asking?"

"Huh? I can't exactly just give you a call! You switch numbers every other month!" The doll-faced woman kicks off her shoes, and drapes her legs across the armrest. 

"Get. Out. You have no business here right now,” Lucilius’ voice is a shade away from a threat. 

"I don't? That's news to me."

Lucilius snarls, clicking his tongue, nails tapping on his elbow. Djeeta responds with a smile and a tin of sugar cookies. 

Twenty minutes later, they're all in the living room, in two plush armchairs across from a low rise coffee table. Belial puts down cups of rose tea between the two heads, lounging on a chair nearby. His gun’s in his holster and out of sight, not wanting to be rude for once. 

“Heard you’ve been busy.”

“Oh, you already know? The other day, Cilius and I decided to experiment with some—”

"So why did you decide to shoot up a church?" Djeeta expertly swerves around the insinuation.

Lucilius grumbles, “I didn't shoot up a church.”

"You didn't? The force acted like they were responding to an active shooter."

They sure did. The pain in his shoulders where they pinned him down still stings, even weeks later. "If I did, you'd know,” he replies, blunt-toned. 

Djeeta reaches into the tin and comes out with three cookies between her fingers. "I thought you'd be the one knocked off this time. I was glad to hear that you just ended up getting sent to prison instead. You'd better be careful." She drops them into her mouth, one by one, and blows on the rim of the cup. She's always been weak to hot things. "Someone's been knocking off a lot of family heads recently."

Lucilius sips at his own. ”I can't imagine you've been too upset about that. As soon as Society was destabilized, their territory was snatched up quite quickly.” 

Djeeta shoots him a wink. “We know an opportunity when we see them. I’m just surprised you didn’t go for the territory yourself.”

“I don’t need land.”

“But a lot of territory’s opened up lately.”

Lucilius’ only response is to take a cookie from the tin and take minuscule bites. 

"Lumiel, Levin, Irestill, Erste, Society. All of the major heads of the families have met a surprising and mysterious end."

"It's strange how they were all so easily bypassed. Weren’t they supposed to have guards that would give their lives for their leaders?“

"Not that. Something stranger. Why haven't they come for me yet?" Djeeta pops another cookie into her mouth. "It's not like Cypher has been slacking in the power struggle. We're not at Society or Erste level, but I'd say we had more of a stronger footing than Irestill. But for some reason, the murderer went for a weaker family before us."

"Maybe they're only interested in the top of the ladder."

"Can I ask a question?"

"You'd ask it anyway."

"Do they have anything in common? And does that thing have anything to do with you?"

“Besides that they’re all powerful people? Nothing quite comes to mind. Why not use that whisper-chain you’re so proud of?”

She groans, a sign of what-makes-you-think-I-haven’t? loud and clear. She doesn’t believe him either. “And after I made it all the way here, and waited on line to get you those nice cookies.”

“I should just kick you out.”

"If you did, then nobody would ever come visit you, would they? Sure, you have Belial, but do you ever see anyone else? A house this huge must have a lot of gaps.“

Lucilius keeps his silence. He hasn’t told her about Lucio either, but anyone who’s seen his face would notice how he’s a mirror image of the current chief of police. Lucilius doesn't move around in public too much. People would start asking questions, and he despises questions. Djeeta’s smart enough that she hasn't asked him anything. 

He shrugs, just a small shift of his shoulders. “Whatever’s going on doesn’t seem to be bad business for you.”

“But do you think it’ll be bad business for me?”

“Not if you’re smart, no. And you always work hard.”

A quirk to her lips in the shape of a smile. She’s a young woman, but her eyes are not those of someone young. She finishes off her tea and makes a show of looking at her watch. “Thanks for having me! And invite me properly next time, okay?”

Lucilius grunts, doesn’t get up to see her out. 

“Say hi to Lyria for me,” Belial hums as Djeeta throws her coat back over her shoulders. 

“Hit on her again and I’ll castrate you!” Djeeta reminds him as she shuts the door behind her. 

Belial pours the last of the tea into Lucilius’ teacup, waits five minutes until he’s sure they’re the only ones that remain anywhere on the premises. His smirk flashes across his face, but his teeth are pointed at the corners of his lips. “She’s smart. Maybe a little too smart.”

Lucilius nods a silent affirmative. People don’t last long in this business by being fools.

“And if she’s noticed something, other people are going to find out too.”

He’s not surprised that people not in the know have found out. Even an animal can tell a storm’s coming, not from logic, but from the innate fear they get deep down. Cypher has their finger steady on what Djeeta calls the whisper-chain, the endless flow of rumors that runs through any city, any country. They’ve perfected being able to sift the truth out from a stream of muddled vague prospects, and turning that into a profit. But a hunch is never enough to get people to mobilize.

“Not fast enough,” Lucilius says, firm. 

* * *

“Target down.”

His radio crackles but no reply emerges. You would think, he muses to himself, he’d at least get a grunt of affirmation. A thank you, perhaps?

“Hellooooo?”

“ _I heard you._ ”

“Then you know I just accomplished something very important. It was very sexy of me. Do you have any choice words, honeybun?”

Dead silence; quite literally, dead silence. Belial heaves the blanketed body of the matriarch down the hotel’s trash chute. The discovery will come within the hour, if not much sooner than that. But that’s the point, you know? Let some poor hotel hand discover Grandma Albion with her neck snapped and her pearls ripped from her throat. That’s what happens when you double-cross Astrale.

He takes great care to straighten his suit and tie, fix his cufflinks, restore his pocketwatch to its rightful place. He takes so long that he forces a reply out of Lucilius on their closed-circuit channel. “ _What is taking you so long?_ ”

Belial smiles fondly at the exasperation he hears. Ah, to be in love. What a wonderful feeling. “Just making sure I look good enough to ravage when I get home. I’ll be out in a few—”

“ _No_.”

“No?”

Another round of silence. Belial wonders if they’re honouring the dead. He presses at the lapel of his jacket and whispers, “Sweetie, I know you’re sentimental, but if I keep talking to myself in this room someone’s going to get suspicious.”

But it doesn’t come. The quick-fire dismissal of _they’ll assume you are fornicating_ does not come. The silence radiates and wraps and ties and binds. The weight of the chains settles firmly across Belial’s chest.

Ah, to be in love. What a terrible feeling he has.

“ _She was speaking to him_.”

“Albion? Yeah, she was speaking to many ‘hims,’” Belial acknowledges, putting his foot up on the lowboy to re-tie his shoes. His socks are black and silver with a pattern like snake’s scales. Lucilius had helped pick them out this morning! (Not really.) “For an old lady, she sure gets around. Got around. What else can you expect out of a traitor?”

“ _Belial_.”

“Cil.”

“ _Kill him_.”

Now it is Belial who takes a leap into the great pause. Here he is, in one of the city’s most expensive hotels, skulking his way around a gala meant to revitalise the spirit of the police. They have no reason for celebration, and it was all a thinly-veiled excuse for Albion to start telling Lucio what she knew of the Astrale. Now she’s dead, and Belial’s supposed to head to the extraction point. The mission is complete.

“ _Kill him_ ,” the static rattles. The flood of the inferno, crossing lakes and scorching them. No amount of water can save you. Say your prayers, heretics. He has risen. The end is come.

“Hey, hey,” Belial tries to soothe, “I love how eager you are. My pants are getting a little tight. But you remember the plan. You remember _your_ plan. Babe? ...Lucilius?”

“ _I want him dead. Kill him or don’t come home_.”

The line goes dead. Belial stands perfectly still, one foot still hitched up on the dresser, before he sighs and rights himself. He’d been doing so well; Lucio hadn’t even seen him.

He checks his holster, his sleeves of many knives, and he sighs again.

Ah, to be in love. What a terrible curse.

What a magical ride.

* * *

Lucio isn’t dead.

The gala ended in a clamour. The failed assassination attempt could only be linked to one thing: the recent escape of a high-profile criminal. If his face is not known, then his name is. His family. His assassin. His absolutely worthless, no-good, better-off-dead piece-of-garbage—

“Yowch!”

—husband.

Lucio isn’t dead.

Belial holds out his hands in front of himself but it’s a poor, fake excuse for a defense. If he really wanted to, he could snap Lucilius’ legs. He chooses to suffer the fate of kick after kick after angry kick. He whimpers and he whines, rolling around on the floor of their deepest safehouse.

Lucilius has tolerated failure too many times. He recognises that they are his fault and yet he cannot. Lucio _chose_ to abandon him; Lucilius allowed him to leave. Belial cut Lucio’s hair, not his neck, on _purpose_ ; Lucilius chose to put his faith in a worthless pawn.

Even now, the lock of white hair lies between them like a peace offering. When Lucilius has had enough of trampling Belial, he stomps on the strands instead.

Belial rises to a sitting position, lowering his arms when he realises he’s no longer the focus of ire. He doesn’t offer the sensible words he should: _kicking hair doesn’t really do anything, you know_. Belial just sits on the floor, watching Lucilius crash his foot down into the only connection he has to his blood brother, silent as the devil in the presence of the Time of Judgement.

He is heaving breaths. He is bloodied palms from fingers squeezing his fists too hard. He is eruption, erupted, self-sabotaging, ruining his own plans for the chance to right the ultimate wrong.

But that’s the thing about wrongs. They don’t go away. You can’t fix them. They persist, and the more you look at them the bigger they grow. Lucilius has always been looking at Lucio. Look at him now. Look at him now. Helel, commander-in-chief of an elite police force, doling out forgiveness like mortals should never be allowed to do, letting Belial escape,

Moving mouths with words Lucilius never wants to hear again. Lucio had grabbed Belial by the arm, while everyone else was distracted by the bomb ricocheting throughout the hotel, and instead of killing him he’d told him to pass on the message.

Belial had.

_Father would not want this, brother._

The world is a wheel of endlessly tangled loops that grow more complicated as you go down. The more you squirm the tighter the knots curl around you. If you wish to ascend, you must cut the ties. If you wish to be free you must burn the entire rope.

They are in a stone-walled bunker while police and Society both begin to unravel the truth of Astrale’s plans. The family will quickly fall apart under scrutiny; of that, Lucilius has no doubt.

So what now? What now, genius? What now, prodigy? What now, morning star?

“Burn it,” Lucilius says.

Belial, black and blue, rubs his cheek with the back of his palm. “Pardon?”

“We’re going to burn it.”

“The city?”

But no, no. If you want to free yourself from the loops you must start with the tiniest circles.

“The family. The past. The present. Then the city.” Then, even larger, “Lucio.”

“You really don’t know when to give up,” says Belial, admiringly.

Lucilius looks at him. Belial takes him by the hand, and Lucilius sits on the floor with him.

Belial cups both of his cheeks and kisses him deeply.

“If you love me,” Belial says, “Then I’ll burn it all down. And even if you don’t, I’ll take the whole damn thing with me.”

Lucilius snorts, cradling the wrists that hold him. Cut the ties. Burn the rope. Burn it all.

Are you watching, Lucifer?

“Count yourself lucky that I do.”


	3. bloom

Dissolve, defend, dedicate.

He peers from behind his glasses with his hair all askew. He gathers it up in a bundle, lowering his shoulders. It tumbles like a waterfall.

“Shalem,” he greets, like holy rapture. A desk separates them but it doesn’t have to.

“What are you doing?” she accuses. Spread out across the surface of expensive wood are pictures: here, pictures of home. There, pictures of the past. He looks up and her hair is bound tightly to her head, ribbons making curls and circles of blonde space.

Helel says, “I am contemplating my next move.” His next move will be inspired by God. It will be inspired by the ugly scowl his brother used to make at the camera. It will be inspired, thoughtful, gut-wrenching, terrible. The soft look that a young Lucilius shared with Lucifer decides that.

“People are going to question you. Are questioning you.” Shalem crosses her arms. She has no time for this foolery. Woe to the beasts who lack a past. “Once they figure out who your brother is, you’re through. All that talk of ‘dissolving corruption’ and ‘defending the city’ will look hypocritical.”

What a lipspeaker she has become! When he first met her, Shalem could scarcely utter a word. Her speech disorder had not endeared her to the force. Yet he had made her his second, for all the years they spent together, always at a distance and never coming to a full understanding.

She scowls at him for the fond look he levels her with. “Are you listening to me, Commander?”

“Of course I am. I hear every word you say.”

“You are going to die,” she tells him, “Or you’re going to be ousted. And then you’re going to die. How do you want your legacy to end?”

“Why,” he says patiently, hands folded over the remnants of history, “I would not like it to end at all. There must be a peaceful way out of this. Don’t you think so?”

Her eyes are a dead fire, long-extinguished. Her hope was a dry seed when he met her. Slowly, he had cultivated it. He had thought for the longest time that you could shape people like trees. She has continued to prove him otherwise. And that is why he trusts her above all else.

Shalem says, “Not unless you’ve got a trick up that sleeve of yours.”

“Oh, then I must get to thinking. There’s no time to waste.” He gathers up the photos on his desk and tucks them neatly into a drawer. Shalem’s condemning stare hasn’t changed a bit. “Can you give me some time, Shalem?”

“I’d rather not,” she mutters.

Helel sits up straighter. “Can you give the Commander some time?”

Shalem snorts. “I obey orders. I know what I’m doing.”

“Then by all means.”

She dismisses herself. For one moment, Helel watches her go, remembering the hint of skin she had shown when she wore a black dress to the police gala. It had cuts going up all the way to the pelvis.

All the better to show off her clawed shoes and thigh holsters.

Helel traces the patterns of age indicated through the wood of his desk. The window behind him offers the bright sun to illuminate his workstation. It catches and glints off the mirror, tucked in the far corner, where he offers his prayer to the divine every morning.

Oh, Lucilius. Dear brother. Dissolve, defend, dedicate. Dissolve, defend, dedicate. Why could he not adhere to those simple instructions?

Dissolve.

Lucilius says, _Desert_.

Defend.

Lucilius hisses, _Defile_.

Dedicate.

Lucilius, looming far above him in the back of his mind, whispers a truth: _Deny_.

Helel comes to his feet and throws his hair over his shoulders.

Father would not have desired for them to fight so. But Father is dead and Helel does not visit his grave except on the darkest of nights, so the public will not talk.

He inclines his head to the mirror and offers a prayer to the late. His thoughts are a jumble. To save his world and save his family— he does not have the slightest clue. If only Shalem can buy him time, then the answer will belong to him. He is sure.

You do not destroy the heart of a city and rebuild it without sacrificing things you love.

* * *

When Shalem was born she was the only daughter of a man. She supposes she must have had a mother at some point. It’s a far-flung conclusion but Shalem has learned not to trust in the obvious. Lucio, she is quite sure, sprung out of the ground from a tree sapling. Why is it so strange a thought that she might have only a father, might only have been made out of mud?

“Where’s the Commander?” asks one of the officers. She hasn’t even opened her mouth. She fixes him with a stare but he doesn’t balk, doesn’t back down.

“The reason I’ve called you here,” says Shalem, speaking to the packed room of officers, “is to report that from today forward, I will be taking over the Commander’s role.” The microphone produces all sorts of feedback. She has to remember to round out the syllables in her mouth, make sure they don’t get caught on her tongue.

Her enunciation is a greater concern to her than the ruckus raising in the room. Officers of all rank and file break out into whispers. She gives the mic a few disdainful taps with her finger, bringing a hush to the crowd.

“Are there any questions.” She gives them two seconds. Then, rejoining with a soft breath, she utters, “Then, this meeting is adj—”

“Hold on,” says a smaller man with a face. He stands up on his seat, which is customary for Harvins, but he dives straight into his objection without introducing himself. “Why is this happening? Where’s the Commander going?” Shalem holds his stare, and then finally, he mutters, “Officer Sevilbarra. Firearms Investigation.”

Shalem tries to pin the name down in her mouth, fails. “Officer,” she addresses. “You don’t have clearance to know the Commander’s current operations. No one in this room does.”

“Except you?” interjects a more careful voice. “Officer Vermeil. Community Affairs.” Shalem knows him. He gave her a recommendation for a brand of eye drops.

“The people who are supposed to know already know,” Shalem replies. “You’re all here so you know where to direct your complaints.” A ripple passes through the faces of the policemen. “My secretary. Not me.”

“This is ridiculous.” Agielba. He’s the tall man who brings his daughter to work, even when it isn’t ‘Bring Your Daughter to Work Day.’ Shalem finds herself caught up in how she knows his name at all. “You might be his second, but the Commander should be handing down these orders himself! Where is he!”

“Busy.”

“Not good enough!” Agielba rails. Several officers, though stunned by his fervor, nod their agreement.

It is not, however, Shalem’s job to please the people beneath her. She feels a headache coming on and makes a motion for _everyone_ to hurry up. “If there are actual questions, I’ll listen. Otherwise, you’re officers. This is a formality. You take orders and you follow them.”

Nobody likes that. Everybody will remember it. Shalem doesn’t care. She’s buying time by spouting lies, building a wall of mud, just like she was formed out of the loam herself.

A graceful hand rises out of the sea, and the objector slips through the waves to the front. “Deputy Melissabelle,” says the sweet voice. Serene eyes settle on her. Shalem feels something tight at the back of her head, but the gaze isn’t piercing or soulless-- not like Helel’s. “Traffic. How long can we expect the chain of command to be altered?”

“For as long as necessary,” intones Shalem.

“Will day-to-day operations be affected?”

“Not really.”

Finally, Melissabelle says, “This is for the ultimate good of the city. Isn’t it?”

Shalem bears the weight of those sleepy eyes on her and answers, “Yes.”

Melissabelle turns to the rest of the officers. She is demure, small, even for a Harvin, but she possesses the poise that most of the upper echelon of the force lack. Maybe she should’ve been the one giving the conference. “I, for one,” Melissabelle says, “believe in the Commander, and I believe in the Adjutant. Everyone, please… let’s cooperate. For the good of the citizens.”

It rouses feeling. Not everyone agrees with it, and it’s out of line. Shalem gives a tap of her microphone and says, “This meeting is adjourned.”

The officers do not disperse. They clump together like clay, talking amongst themselves, doubt a thick fragrance in the room. It’s not as heavy as Shalem was expecting it to be. She catches Melissabelle’s eye one more time before she steps away from the podium, and the traffic deputy offers her a kind smile.

She feels chilled to the bone as she retreats. It reminds her too greatly of betrayal.

* * *

When Shalem was born, she was the only son of a man. That man made her out of mud. She’s pretty sure this is right, because he always called her muddy. She played in the mud after it rained outside. Her face, when she flushed, was _muddy_. She came from mud. She was mud. Everything about her was mud.

Her father was always trying to be free of the mud. He’d scrub himself red, spend hours in the bath and only come out ten minutes before Shalem’s bedtime. She’d wash herself like he did, but mud can’t rid itself of mud. The serpent can’t eat its own tail, no matter how hard it tries.

One day he made her stop going to school. Or she stopped going to school herself, and he didn’t complain. She doesn’t recall. The memories are muddy.

The skies were always gray and she would go out after the rain had stopped. She’d haul a shovel around with her and dig holes. She found things to bury: bottle caps, plastic soda rings. One time she buried the body of a stray cat. Mud doesn’t make for good graves. But she thought, maybe, she could do them this service. She could bury the discarded and unwanted things, and when the sun came out, the mud would turn to soil and people could unbury them, make them whole again.

One night she’s thirteen. It’s dark. The moths gather around the porch lights. She’s making a grave and burying her father. Why? He’s dead. The mud will take him, and when the water leeches out, he’ll come back again. He’s heavy and he’s cold and digging a hole for a grown man is very hard. But the mud gives way, easily.

When her father’s beneath the ground, she makes a hole for herself and lays in it. She shovels some of the mud over herself but it’s awkward. It would work much better if there were someone else to bury her. Perhaps when she arrives again in the leeched earth, her father can greet her and tell her how to do it properly.

Except, when she wakes— when she comes to herself— there’s red and blue lights streaking the night. She has a blanket wrapped around her, and she’s getting it all dirty. A woman is speaking to her. _How did this happen_?

Shalem looks at her. “You didn’t give me enough time. There’s no soil. Just mud.”

So there are words thrown around. Her ears feel clogged but she can hear them. They think she murdered her father. Maybe she did, but probably not.

“What happened?” presses a different woman, with white-blonde hair, stern eyes.

“You didn’t let me leech,” Shalem tells her. But her words are muddy, the syllables are dirty in her mouth, and they don’t understand.

The woman speaks into a radio on her shoulder. “Get a psychiatrist ready. A speech pathologist too, maybe. I think she’s in shock.”

Shalem is not.

The night drifts back into rain. She sits in the dark with some orange juice they fetched her from a vending machine down the road. They keep asking her what happened; she keeps telling them, but it’s not a dry throat or dirt in her mouth that’s keeping them from understanding. It’s the mud.

The officer, Ms. Michael, is bad at biting back her impatience. She wants to get out of the rain, but they can’t leave until the evidence has been recovered. Or something. “Get the rookie!” she snaps suddenly, after a last, long look at Shalem. “The young one. Hele— yes. Him. Maybe he’ll get something out of her.”

Blue-red embraces the night. A ghost appears before her. He sits down next to her, drawing up his feet like she’s done, studying her bare toes, her dirty face. “Hello,” the ghost greets. He has a paper smile. (Her father told her that if she went back to school she would stain the papers with her mud. She’s going to stain him too.)

Shalem doesn’t answer.

“Why were you in a hole next to your father?” asks the ghost.

“I’m mud,” she says, carefully, rough noises coming out of her mouth in a jumble. “I wanted soil. We could have been new.”

After a thoughtful pause, the ghost says, “Mud doesn’t grow out of mud.”

Shalem sips her juice.

He continues. “You’re thinking of a seed. You’re a seed. What kind of seed are you?”

Shalem says, “A mud seed.”

The ghost laughs. “Ms. Mud, my name is Helel. It’s nice to meet you.”

So Helel took Ms. Mud and tried to make her into a tree.

* * *

“Mrs. Confortola.”

“Michael will do.”

“Michael. My name is—”

“Helel ben Sahar, Commander of the police force,” Michael finishes for him. Her tone isn’t terse, exactly, but Lucio observes that her shoulders are drawn in, and her posture, even behind two inches of reinforced glass, is guarded. “I worked under you. You worked under me.”

Lucio smiles. “You have a good memory.”

Her eyes stray, and her voice crackles through the receiver. “All officers should.”

Michael, however, is not an officer. She _was_ an officer, in a dream long ago. Now, she is a prisoner, a convicted killer that spends most of her time in a single-bed cell, reading books.

“You were convicted nine years ago for the murder of a man who invaded your home. While your defense attempted to argue for the castle doctrine, the judge and jury eventually ruled that your knowledge as a police officer should have made you capable of restraining the offender and retreating. You are serving a life term for…”

“Second degree murder.” Michael stares at him flatly. “Is there a reason you are summarising my criminal history to me, Commander?” He knows that her visits are limited, and she has never liked him much, anyway.

Lucio draws his hands together, keeping them on the table where she can see. “I wanted to talk to you about your son.”

If Michael was steely before, she is all but platinum now, metal and cold. “Which son, Commander?”

“Sandalphon… is that right? I’m not sure if that’s his legal name or his alias.”

“...It’s his legal name,” she allows, squinting at him. “You…”

“He,” Lucio says quietly, “was arrested for trying to cause great harm to another person. If we hadn’t arrived when we did, he might have ended up with a similar sentence to yours.”

Michael has not heard this news. She keeps her face level, but her hands clench. “Where is he?”

“He is under house arrest, supervised 24/7 by an officer.”

A storm of emotions flickers behind her eyes. Lucio supposes Sandalphon hasn’t been visiting his mother. Michael’s shoulders lurch high, and then they sag, and the fight has gone out of her body.

“Gabriel didn’t mention it.”

“I think,” Lucio says politely, “she wanted you to hear it from him. He has supervised visits. It would be easy to approve his visit to you.”

“What do you want out of me?” Michael snaps. “I have no time to play games with you.”

Lucio wants to laugh, but he doesn’t. He feels the heat of her fire, even from where he sits. If he is truthful, he is not here to discuss Sandalphon, or even Michael herself.

“I wanted to talk to you about family.”

Michael’s brows come together, and then she turns her head down. She strokes the ring on her finger with a gentle care. “Plenty of your men have families, Commander. Why is it you come to speak to a murderer about the importance of family?”

“My, Michael. Please don’t speak so lowly of yourself. You’re the exact woman I wanted to speak to.”

She’s trying to behold his machinations. She’s smart. She studies him in silence for some time, and Lucio doesn’t move. He offers her one of his placid smiles.

She eases back into her seat, the jingle of her cuffs rolling through the speaker. “What about family, Commander?”

“You committed a crime to save your family,” Lucio says, lacking his delicacy from before. Michael shuts her eyes. “That’s in your recorded testimony. You were one of the most skilled, compassionate, experienced members of our team. You knew the law. And yet, you chose not to appeal the decision of the court. Why was that?”

“I don’t think that’s the question you want to ask, Commander.”

Nodding his head, Lucio leans in. “You knew, at the time of the break-in, that you could have disabled the perpetrator without seriously injuring him. Yet, you pushed him down and snapped his neck. Michael. Why?”

“For my family.”

Lucio doesn’t break in. Michael opens her eyes, takes a breath in of the stale visiting room air. She looks at herself. “I knew that man would be back on the streets. Corruption was rank. He would have received probation. And he would have returned to my home, armed with a weapon, and murdered my wife and my children.” She meets Lucio’s gaze. “You changed the system of justice, but that was after my trial. You were young— too young. I knew the consequences that awaited me when I saw that man. But if it must be this or my family’s lives… I am glad to be here.”

Breathlessly, Lucio asks her, “When did you know that the law was not enough to protect your family?”

She gives him an odd look, but answers with the swiftness that only Michael can. “The second I laid eyes on him.” But then, she shakes her head. With a wry smile, she corrects herself. “No. I knew it was a matter of time. I was a high-ranking member of the police. I wouldn’t take bribes. I wouldn’t cooperate. So I knew what I must do, even before the window shattered and he climbed in.”

They sit in a foggy silence, after. The guard at the door checks his watch, but he’s not about to tell the commander that his time is over. Lucio recognises his politeness, and he draws himself up straight in his seat.

“To save your family, you violated the law. And you do not regret it?”

“I do not regret it.”

“Thank you for your time, Mrs. Confortola.” Lucio rises out of his seat. The guard on Michael’s side approaches, ready to unshackle her from the table. She will never hurt anyone again.

But Lucilius… oh, little brother. Dear brother.

“Family is utmost, Commander,” says Michael as parting words. Her head is turned to the side, so Lucio must strain his ears to catch the last of her voice through the glass. “Don’t forget that.”

Family is utmost. Police, civilian, mafia— the answer is always the same. Protect your family.

And what if the evil you must protect your family from is your family himself?

Lucio leaves the visitation room, forlorn, still no closer to his answer.

* * *

“Your father is dead,” was delivered to them in their square room, painted pale green. The man spoke solemnly, sad but not upset. “I’m sorry.”

Lucilius’ broken clock, its back popped open with its insides sprawled across the blankets, lay untouched. Lucio had forgotten to check on the birds outside. 

“They’re going to kill us,” Lucilius broke the silence. His voice was more hollow than Lucio remembered. When Lucio said something reassuring, Lucilius turned on him, snapping, “They will! Who wants to take care of some worthless kids?”

Lucilius didn’t even knock Lucio away when he came and sat next to him. All he did was stare at his lap, muttering, “Our protection’s gone, Father’s dead. They’ll kill us, or they’ll sell us to some freak and then they’ll kill us.” He flinched, but he didn’t fight when Lucio wrapped an arm around him. 

“They won’t,” Lucio promised. “I’m sure. Believe me.” Lucilius gave him a look, disbelieving, and Lucio needed his brother’s brain to be sharp and not dull with fear. They were both too young, and neither of them should have had to think that tomorrow would be their last. “Do you remember what we’ve been doing the last few days?”

“Being pets,” Lucilius grumbled. “Standing by _his_ side and serving him tea and refilling his pipe. We’re props.”

“And who was he meeting with? Other family heads. Showing us off, showing that we’re under control.” Lucio hated the words as he said them, still hated them now. They wanted to break the two of them, make them pliable. “They need us, to show that the Astrale, even without their head, still have power.” Lucio’s throat grew tight at that realization; the sight of Father from the car’s back window as they were spirited away was the last they’d ever see of him. Lucilius, heart slowed, was the only family he had left. “We have to be compliant.”

“Why?” snarled Lucilius, nails digging into Lucio’s shirt. Little brother, who always showed his rebellion. 

“Act it. So they think we remain useful, so they don’t suspect it. And then when we get that moment, we’ll get out of here.” 

Lucilius mumbled his assent. “Are you going to come up with some duty that you have to attend to?” 

Father was dead; Mother was dead too. Everyone that could take the headship was probably gone. It was just the two of them. Lucio had always had to help his father with the family duties that seemed too much for one man to carry. Duty over all: that was the only way that their family would flourish, even if it meant having to constantly refuse Lucilius. Now there was only ash and a dream. “Only our promise.” That they’d change the world that melted their wings, one that saw fit to tear their family apart.

“Promise me this time,” Lucilius spoke into his shirt, half-muffled. “It’s just us. Only us.”

Only the two of them could change things. They had a mission that was greater than them. They would change the world that shunned them. They would make sure nothing like that ever happened again. Lucio promised.

Then, a miracle. An enemy family set a bomb in the east wing, blew out a wall. The man keeping Lucio on a chain was trapped under debris, and the sunlight streamed in between the fire and smoke. Oh, he’d prayed, he’d prayed for so long, and now— now—

But Lucilius was back in the west wing, serving tea at a meeting. Too far away. God had given Lucio an opportunity, and his mission was greater than he was. A miracle only happens once. He slipped through the debris and out into the field, running as fast as he could before anyone caught sight of him. 

Lucio, now, in the dark of his bedroom, hair undone and short, whiskey on his nightstand. He’d done it; the town is in the middle of change. But— Lucilius making him promise an _us_. Michael, resolute in her prison jumpsuit. “Family is utmost.” Surrounded on all sides by the gray walls, Lucilius burning him with hate. “I will never trust you ever again,” he said, quiet, vicious, singed. 

Perhaps he was a terrible brother. 

* * *

“What a terrible brother,” Belial is saying as he pours black rose tea into Lucilius’ cup. He serves it with the fine china today. It’s pure white, saucer included, save for the gold rim decorated like little stars. The bottom of the cup, on the inside, is gold-plated too. Lucilius stares into the depths with a rotting hatred. “Now everyone knows about us. What’s the plan, Cil?”

“You know the plan.”

“I know of the plan.”

Lucilius grunts impatiently. He’s not in the mood for idle talk. He’s not been in the mood for anything except angry staring, sipping at hot tea while he contemplates his revenge. Sometimes, Belial thinks he might throw the cup at the wall.

Sometimes, Belial thinks this might be the day Lucilius finally puts him down.

He rolls his wedding ring around on his finger, sitting on the black sofa, feather-light.

Lucilius, not looking at him.

Belial, looking at Lucilius.

Lucilius, black circles under his eyes, beginning his soft string of muttering, his train of thought spoken aloud too soft to be heard.

Belial, looking at Lucilius.

The train gets louder and softer. Belial catches mention of something about burning. Yes, he’s privy to the plan. But it’s like a snake, shedding its skin, taking on new ideas and discarding old ones as Lucilius’ anger twists around itself.

Lucilius, gripping hard the handle of his teacup, draining the entire thing in one go.

Belial, taking the cup and saucer from hands squeezed too tight.

As with most plans, it begins thus: “We begin with a bomb.”

“You’re very good with pyrotechnics,” compliments Belial, which is just as much an indication that he’s listening as it is praise. “Where’s it going? Hopefully nowhere I am.”

Lucilius glances over. “No. We’ll have a disposable plant it.” He thins his lips. “What men of ours remain loyal?”

“Hmm? Most of them, actually. Only a few ran off after the Astrale name was dragged out. People are scared, but they don’t know _what_ they’re scared of.” Neither the public nor the mafia have any idea what they’re dealing with. The traitors shiver in their boots. The rest of them, all they remember is an old, old family that should’ve died nearly twenty years ago.

(How about the name that built this town? How about the family that kept the streets safe before the police got their act together? Nobody remembers that part, and Lucilius is not interested in pursuing it.)

“Azazel.”

Belial nods. “Loyal to the end. He’ll do whatever you ask. You want him to plant it?”

After a beat of silence, Lucilius replies, “Tell him there’s an escape route. Keep him on the radio until it blows.”

Poor Azazel. Oh, Azazel. Belial supposes he’ll reunite with him in hell. “Oookay. After that?”

“At the same time,” Lucilius corrects, “You and I will be consecrating the plan.”

“By?”

Lucilius fishes the lighter out of one of his pockets. Belial, by instinct, nearly draws out his pack of cigarettes. His fingers twitch. “When my brother took on his new persona, he was baptised at a local church. This was the same church in which he and I received our original names.”

“So we burn it down, and send him a message,” Belial surmises. They’ve been sending Lucio a lot of messages. He seems to be enjoying the attention. Doubtless, he’ll also enjoy this.

Narrowing his eyes, as if he could possibly read Belial’s thoughts, Lucilius gives a grunt of affirmation. “The Temple Hekatonkheir.” _Quite the mouthful_ , Belial thinks. “You’ve heard of it.”

“I have,” Belial nods. He smiles through the press of a hand to his lips. “Never been. Heard it’s beautiful. Pretty much abandoned now, except for the ruckus your brother caused when he was christened there, am I right?”

And Lucilius nods back. It’s a church in which he was captured, and it’s in a church that Lucio, Helel ben Sahar, whatever you want to call him, will learn of his fate. It’s all very sacrilegious.

It’s _incredibly_ sexy.

“After that?” repeats Belial, prodding. But this time, Lucilius shakes his head.

“No. It will not do to tell you of what comes next. Not yet.” He glances over and then scowls. “Cease your conjectures. I know you’re making plans of your own. I will not suffer them.”

“You sure? I had something to add to the temple thing. I thought it would be fun.”

“I have no room for ‘fun’ in my finale, Belial. This is not _fun_.”

“But it could be!” Belial laughs. “Hear me out. Come on.”

Lucilius’ silence is the most agreement he’s going to get. Belial, feeling bold, touches his husband’s knee. He says, “You want to consecrate the start of something unholy. You want to tear down your brother’s ridiculous attempts at cleansing himself of his ‘dark past.’” Lucilius, blue-white eyes, looking at him and not through him. Belial is seen. “What else would be more unholy than to _consummate_ our marriage before the flames burn it all to a crisp?”

“We’ve consummated our marriage,” objects Lucilius flatly, “many, many times.”

“Of course, honey. But this would be the real deal. It would have a terrible impact in all the right ways.” Belial presses in, forehead to Lucilius’ temple in convocation. “Or we could consummate your plan right now. What do you say?”

“I say you are a fool.”

Belial chuckles. “You always say that.”

“And it is never untrue.”

Lucilius, however, turns his head, so they are nose-to-nose and eye-to-eye. Belial’s gaze flicks down to Lucilius’ lips. One of his hands braces against his husband’s forearm.

They share a rosy kiss. Once. Twice. Belial, searching for affection like a man starved of air. Lucilius, pressing back, giving and receiving and reciprocating and _offering_.

He can barely get himself to stop. Belial tugs on the knot of his tie, loosening it with a purpose. “I’ll follow you forever,” he promises.

Lucilius scoffs. He pushes Belial down, crawling on top of him. His red stola pools upon Belial’s chest. Belial is hypnotised and transfixed and pulled into the alluring embrace of Lucilius’ eyes.

“Then you will descend into hell,” says Lucilius.

“I’ll help you become king there, too,” Belial swears.

It tugs up the sides of Lucilius’ mouth in a rare smile. Belial feels his heart nearly beating out of his chest. “You are so obvious it disgusts me.” One, two, three, four. Open the door to his heart. Five, six, seven, eight. Light those sticks; throw them straight. Nine, ten. Fall all over again. “I love you.”

“I love you,” agrees Belial, hasty, reaching up when Lucilius descends upon him. He opens his legs and moans the words passionately to the walls.

* * *

“You have the sense to invite me properly this time!” Djeeta gives him a pointed look, eyebrow curled over the rim of her teacup. 

“If I didn’t,” Lucilius makes clear, “you would have found me anyway.”

Her wink promises the truth. The cookies he set out leave powdered sugar all over her fingers, when she licks the excess off, her elbow thuds into his ribs. Her mouth pops open, and after a swipe on a napkin, her hands go right to his sides. “Oh god, you’re all bone.”

Belial flits in and out of the room like he owns their conversation no matter what, placing a french press steaming with tea on the table before them. He’s the only person who could remain this cheerful in a storm. Thunder rages outside, and Belial announced that he’d choose the tea accordingly. Unbelievable. “You believe me now? I’ve been trying to make him put on a little more, but he remains a skeleton.”

Lucilius shoves her back. She’s persistent. The sofa they’re on is wide enough for three, but Djeeta always likes ignoring people’s spaces. “Do you feel your joints in the morning?”

“Cease your prattle,” he snarls, but she is unmoved. Belial remains by the back of the sofa, grinning at them, and Lucilius quietly swears that he’ll end them both. 

She becomes distracted by the stacked tray of sweets and tea that smells like passionfruit and ginger, and starts going on about some gossip. New territory claims, careless people who landed in jail, spottings of important peoples’ closed-door affairs. “It looks like the police are having some trouble. The commander’s position has been taken over by his adjunct, but there’s been no notice of him being fired or stepping down for good.”

“Is that right?” he says with a not-smile.

“Weird, because ever since that Helel guy got his position, he’s stuck to it. All the pushback internally and from our world didn’t mean a thing; now he collapses on his own?” Djeeta slides into a hum and takes a sip of her tea. “Whenever there’s restructuring, there’s a change. Or trouble.”

“All those cold cases can’t look good.”

“Yes, all those dead dons. And then there’s the fact that someone tried to slice the commander’s neck recently. Strange, that.”

“Isn’t that something?”

“Sure is. You’re really mad at that guy who stole your face, aren’t you?”

Lucilius nearly pauses mid-chew. It’s no secret that there was an assailant, but all the press had been about the death of Grandmother Albion. The police would have put a stranglehold on the information that their commander was in danger, lest it make them lose face. Of course, someone will always get out, start to talk, keep the whisper-chain alive. “He didn’t steal my face.”

“But he stole something, didn’t he?”

“Perhaps.”

Djeeta bobs her head in understanding. “Scared him too, enough that he’s crawled underground.”

“He can’t breathe underground forever. And if the worms are hidden, then there’s always ways to make them come to the surface.”

Belial inclines his head and curls his lip. He’s lounging over the couch back on the other side of Djeeta; she can’t see the warnings he’s shooting Lucilius’ way. 

Her eyes are wide and glowing, full of secrets. “Tell me.”

Lucilius’ expression is neutral, but he is alight from within. Thunder rolls down the windows. “The land’s no good here. It hasn’t been good for a long time, and no amount of idealism is going to make it change. Not when the foundation is rotting. Keep building up, and whatever’s on top will come crashing down either way.”

Djeeta opens and closes her hand, looking at her fingernails reflecting the orange of the cold lamplight. “Sounds like it’s too late to go buy a hardhat.”

“Iceland is lovely this time of year.” Chalk words in his mouth, crumbling. “You’ve been in the warm weather for too long. You’ve forgotten what snow looks like.”

“You’ve never gone on vacation in your life.”

“You haven’t known me that long,” he bites back with no teeth. He doesn’t say that she’s right. 

She idly prods at the rim of her teacup. “You’re like a fire, you know that? Except you can’t be put out. Fires like that, you either try your hardest to smother, or get right out of the way.”

A slice of a smile, just barely across his lips. 

She crosses her arms and leans into his personal space. “So what kind of flames are we going to see?”

Belial lets out a sigh, dramatically shrugging. “Singularity, you’re always asking for too many favors.”

“Favors are the best currency,” she says, waving him off.

‘Singularity’ is what Belial calls Djeeta, even years after she graduated from being a street shadow to forming her own family. Most families ebb and flow, trading out heads and loyalties, but Djeeta claimed her own space. She was the kind of woman who knew everyone’s business, but never enough for anyone to think to get nervous. Cypher stayed in its bounds, dealing secrets, making their name trustworthy. Cypher may not have the whole story, but whatever they deal is true. Everyone in their world knows that.

“And then what?” She is not one to be distracted. “You uproot the establishment, then? You know there’s going to be a power vacuum as soon as whatever was at the top is gone. What’s going to replace it?”

Lucilius tilts his cup to his lips, letting the flavor swirl around his tongue. “That’s none of my concern.”

“Seems kind of irresponsible, setting fires and not being committed to rebuilding after they’re burnt out.”

“It’s not _my_ concern.”

Djeeta peers up at him, her face yellow and black from the fireplace and the dark clouds. She opens her mouth, then shuts it again, knowing that whatever she says will not change his mind. Whispers can’t contort the truth, not this time. 

“Harvest is coming. You’ve planted your seeds. Soon will be the time to collect.”

“If I’m here to collect.”

It’s just the three of them for some time, as the rain and thunder speaks for them. The platter grows empty, all down Djeeta’s throat, stench of chilling tea overlapping with the cool winds of the storm. 

A step. “When it all burns, I want to watch.”

Belial quirks an eyebrow. “Since when did you have a hard-on for destruction? I thought you preached peace and love and all that jazz.”

“I’m not interested in being a voyeur,” Djeeta’s words are sure, steady. “I want to know what I’ll return to.”

Belial prepares a lewd jab, but Lucilius cuts in. “Done.”

She quirks an eyebrow, a tell that she knows he predicted this much. “I will miss our friendship teatime. Nobody has as good of a taste in tea as you.”

Lucilius narrows his eyes. “We are not friends.”

“Uh-huh.” 

He has no friends. He has lost track of how old he is currently, only how long his old life was and how slow the time had passed since it was poisoned at the root. Hate has pulsed through his veins so steadily, bringing vigor, adrenaline, ash. She is not Belial, who he has given his trust and heart to, but she was the only one who found his face and demanded tea instead of sacrifices. She grins against his shoulder, and it will not stop him from doing what he must, but it makes the hate slow. 

“Well, well. Happy ending is it? We can all kiss and say goodbye.” Belial leans down between them, slinging his arms around their shoulders and pulling them close. “This calls for a celebration. You know what? I think it’s finally time for our long overdue orgy.”

“No,” Lucilius grumbles.

“Why not? You, me, us three. Singularity, why don’t you call Lyria over to make four?”

A palm and an elbow hit him at the same time.

* * *

Helel gives Lucifer a smile as soon as he walks into the low-lit office. “Oh! Hello! Come, take a seat. I just made some tea, I can pour you some.”

Lucifer does, but the chair is hard under him, and the knobs on the wheels scratch his ankles. Behind the desk, Helel sits in his pressed shirt and golden bands around his wrists. He shimmers under the fluorescent ceiling lights, the glow of an inferno still burning. Lucifer thinks of his own flames, but now they feel like a lit match burning down. 

“It’s rare for you to visit,” Helel says, frowning at his pen when it doesn’t roll smoothly across his fingers. That is no surprise; the two of them tended to stay away from each other. It was no shock to anyone that they were related somehow, the shapes of their faces too similar to not be remarked on, but people assumed they were brothers. Neither would correct it, the truth would be poison to them both. Apart and away was for the best. 

“The adjutant said you’re stepping down,” Lucifer says, words dry but practiced. “But you are still here.”

“Shalem said that, did she?” Helel, unconcerned. He has a band-aid on his neck from the failed gala, but even that disaster left him unbent. He always seems like he was looking beyond the horizon. 

Lucifer never really did understand Helel, Lucio, whatever shape his cousin takes. When Lucifer would visit his cousins, Lucio would wane out of his time, filling his space with errands, work, empty smiles and promises of, “I’m so busy today, but next time,” when next time was more of the same. Lucilius at least, in his dark fire clinging to Lucifer’s arm, was flesh and blood. Even now, there is an oak desk and a continent between them. 

“Commander. What are you planning?” Lucifer pushes, his fingers hooked against his knees. When Helel breathes out but says nothing, Lucifer lowers his voice. “Cousin. Please.”

By the time Helel speaks, the tea has gone cold. Lucifer has barely moved, unsure if there are rules to coax the truth, if one finger out of place will ruin the balance. Helel’s shoulders have hardened, his smile grown tougher, shedding the mask that’s Helel into Lucio again. He gets up, crosses the room to lock the door, and sits back down again. 

“I’m unsure.” Lucio admits. “Shalem is upset at me, because I’m not sure what to do.”

Eyes on eyes, they both think of the same name, the only other branch that remains of their blood. 

“He’s always been mischievous, hasn’t he?” Lucio gives up a sigh. “Playing with fire. It wouldn’t be the first time.”

Lucifer doesn’t like how Lucio’s eyes linger for a second too long. He’s unfamiliar with this heat. 

“A good blaze can restart the cycle, bring nutrients back to the land. But we’ve already had our time. Any more is just senseless destruction.” A sharp inhale. “That can’t be allowed to happen. Not in the name of order.”

“Are you… going to kill him?”

Lucio closes his eyes. “If it comes down to that, then I must prepare myself for it.”

“Do you believe that?”

“Do you think I wouldn’t, if push comes to shove?”

Lucifer swallows his tongue. He likes to imagine that Lucio is the same Lucio in his memories, the person who tried too hard to get his father’s attention but was the first to dive towards his family in the smoke and ash of Lucilius’ room. The same Lucio who greeted Lucifer with a smile during his visits, who’d click his tongue at Lucilius’ antics but tell Lucifer he’s happy someone could keep his brother company? The same Lucio who sits across from him, eyes white circles, more abyss than human. 

He’s not sure if Lucio’s laugh is a relief. “That silence is funny, Lucifer. Don’t stare at me like that; it makes me feel embarrassed.”

Lucifer looks at his hands, and then very carefully answers, “I would like to think you wouldn’t be so quick to kill your brother.”

“Oh, but he tried to kill me, you know? So quick, too.” Lucio twists his finger around where a lock of his long hair would have been, just a few weeks ago. “But ah, you’re right. It wouldn’t be very good to kill him so easily. Even if Shalem wants to cut his head off as soon as possible. It’s good optics to catch a notorious criminal and murderer, but it’s not good if the head I hold up looks just like my own. Problems, problems.”

Another pause, then, “That can’t be easy.”

Laughter isn’t around Lucio’s eyes. “You have doubts. About the force. About me.”

Chewing his cheek, Lucifer stills. He doesn’t want to say yes so easily, even if his mind is spitting nothing but doubts. 

“You could have had a comfortable life in the countryside, but you came back and joined the force. That’s faith. What did I do to earn that?”

When his world was upturned, his parents couldn’t pull him away from the Astrale fast enough. The home they’d settled in was in the middle of a valley, all damp earth and long grass, with a semicircle of trees separating them from their neighbors. A polished house with worn floorboards underneath the carpets, and a different sky every day. Clouds and colors stretching and swirling as he got used to the fog between his ears.

It was peaceful there, and it was a comforting mattress to grow older on. His limbs grew longer; he became accustomed to the bursts of silence. He moved on from the tall buildings and chaos of his childhood. He intended to spend the rest of his life in that valley, or maybe he couldn’t think of what else to do with his life. That was all until the TV was on as he went to shut the curtains to the last rays of the sun one day, and he saw center stage on a live broadcast his cousin. 

Lucio was unmistakable, blue eyes even bluer in the sunlight, trading the vests and slacks he wore as a child for a medal-studded police uniform. How easily he spoke into the frame of microphones, smoothly rapturous, the kind of voice that could coax anyone into stepping off the side of a skyscraper to see if they could touch the sky. 

On that stage he stood, first straight-talking and political, but then clear and true, talking of police reforms from the ground up. “Corruption has taken root so heavily in the force,” he said to his city, to the country, to Lucifer in his rocking chair. “We have lost sight of our mission of justice. We have become something that’s not worthy of the trust of the people. But today, as your new Head Commander, I promise that will change.” Oh, he was spilling blood in the water. He was announcing his revolution, and the message was clear: comply or be destroyed under the force of the future. “The Summer Riots will not happen again. After our reforms are done, there won’t be any need.”

Lucifer knew what the Astrale were by then, even if it remained a forbidden topic in the house. The moment they fled the city they turned their back on the Family, and now that it was nothing but rubble, it was dangerous to speak it back to life. But Lucifer wondered: how was a young boy able to get so many appointments from top doctors with little wait time? How were they able to run away that fast? How was there a house here waiting for them in this place? 

The illusion of safety was torn down the middle. This place, his life, was only so easily secured because his family had been related to a power that was so deeply rooted that tearing it free would bring the pavement and buildings with it. His parents had tapped the power in those roots for the right reasons, but he knew they were the exception and not the rule. 

And he would not be like them. The spark of good was in him, and he’d turn it into a star. Back in the city he’d left behind, there was a police department about to turn on its head, and Lucifer knew what he’d have to do.

“You said what’s right.”

“What’s right,” Lucio answers, ragged even if his face doesn’t move. He sucks in the silence, ice in the ocean, and Lucifer feels that ice prick him for a long, cold moment. “Lucilius has never listened to what’s right. And neither have I.”

Lightning shoots through Lucifer, and he’s acutely aware that one of them is at the edge of a cliff— or perhaps they’re already falling, too far to stop now. He doesn’t want to ask, but he does. “After I left… after the Astrale fell… what happened?”

His cousin, ever-starry, ever-smiling, becomes an empty space. All the light drains out of the room at once-- belatedly, Lucifer’s mind catches up, desperate to rationalize, that this must be Lucio’s anger. 

“I loved my father.”

Lucifer has no idea what to say to that, so he bites his lip and nods. 

“I knew my father had been blessed and burdened with a great responsibility. It was my mission to help him with that weight, given to me by God. Then they killed Mother, and Father lost his mind.”

Lucifer remembers his uncle, who had once noticed Lucifer was missing an indicator of where to sit at their massive dinner table, and wrote his name on an orange in his plate to help Lucifer find his way. The same uncle who, months later, didn’t even see him as they passed each other in the hall. 

“Father- we- had been betrayed, by people who were supposed to be trusted, his own aides. They hated that father had brought the dark into the light, so they gave torches to the public, and the people burned us all down. We were spared, because we had to be made examples of. Living proof that our father’s legacy was contained and malleable.” He grinds his teeth, audible in the vacuum of quiet.

“The police— they could have done something, but they were rotten and let us burn. They had to be revolutionized. If they didn’t, then Father died for nothing.” The abyss speaks, Lucio and Helel one and the same, “It’s not lost on me that I serve the same public that destroyed everything I cared for. But Father would have wanted it— and now the force is filled with good people. And they wouldn’t dare let someone burn again. Not while I’m here.”

Lucifer is used to storms and lightning, but what can he do to a sky that swallows the stars? He looks forward, at the eyes flashing in smoke, but whatever this is, it has done good. The results are key, and the police have straightened their backs. 

“I have faith in you, and the law.” Lucifer says slowly. “But I hope you have faith in family too.”

“Of course.” A sigh, the whizz of a bracelet spinning around a wrist. “When you contact him, or he contacts you— don’t flinch, I know he will— convince him to stop setting fires. If he ceases whatever he’s planning, then we can settle things, as brothers, not as Astrale or the law. You can do it. Let him see the light.”

Lucifer squirms to right himself. Is that really something he can do? Can he move Lucilius? But he knows as Lucio does, that he will seek out Lucilius eventually, or the other will in turn. And when that time comes…

He gets to his feet and gives a polite bow, a promise but no guarantee. 

“Oh, and Lucifer?” drifts words from the abyss. “Tell him he’s already set one fire. That’s enough for a lifetime.”

Lucifer has no idea what it means, only that his throat is so tight he can barely swallow as he steps out into the hall. 

* * *

Sandalphon had gotten his information somewhere, found Lucilius in his shadows. Lucifer's sent a message out on his own, put some faith that it’ll arrive where it needs to. He adjusts himself on the docks so the wooden planks don’t rest as hard, and waits. 

A car engine shutting off. Creaking wood above the water. A flat voice that says, “You could have contacted me directly.”

But how would he have done that? He’s not sure what to give— a smile? A frown?— when Lucilius sits next to him. 

Side by side, they stare out at the dark horizon, gray waters cresting foam against the dock legs. The tide growls as it ebbs and flows, bringing salty winds and gull cries. Lucifer looks at the shapes of Lucilius’ sides, looking for wires that go nowhere, or buds in his ears. Nothing. Lucilius watches him, humorless and patient but unfolded. He presses his pointer and middle finger together and taps his thumb against them, shaking his head. No guns. He came alone, and Lucifer feels the tension leech from his spine. 

Placing his hand to his chin and extending it as a thanks, Lucifer holds Lucilius’ eyes. The look Lucilius gives him back feels like summer in the twilight chill, something reserved for him and him alone. 

They talk about small things with their hands, threading the lost time between them. Sweet air sucking into their lungs, stories of stores erected and shuttered again, how the humidity drains them, meats at the marketplace. Then Lucifer says “Sandalphon,” and Lucilius turns his face to the wind. The moonlight catches him at an angle, darkening instead of illuminating. It’s searing and painful and clear that Lucilius will accept all of Lucifer’s happiness but this. 

Lucifer cups his hand and taps it against his downturned hand twice. 

Lucilius tightens his lips. “What about the church?” Lucifer looks at him, and Lucilius doesn’t need a translation; he knows the question perfectly well. “The brat called us out there.”

But if it wasn’t Lucifer that Lucilius was after, then— the moment is hazy then starkly clear, under the table with his love’s shoulder bloodied and his pupils panic-dilated from the shot echoing across the pavilion. Oh, Sandalphon, what did you stumble into? “Neither of us are threats,” he says again, slowly. Damage control. He has seen Sandalphon’s family, all kids of the street but none who could dream of harming Lucilius. “Neither of us can hurt you.”

The stare he meets is a void. Lucilius chews some skin off his bottom lip. “He can hurt you.”

Now Lucifer is confused. Sure, Sandalphon is prickly, and it took a long, long time to coax him to shed that shield. He hasn’t spoken of his past, but it’s one of knives and bullets. But Sandalphon rolls heatwaves over Lucifer every time he looks his way, and Lucifer never wants to let that cool. Lucifer shakes his head, adamant and firm. 

“He’s a child of the street. All he knows is violence and hate.” Smoke pours out of Lucilius’ mouth, quick and quicker still. “And you’re a bastion of justice, a well-trusted police officer. As he slinks around, he’s latched onto your heart. He’ll use that to his advantage, use you as a shield from any wrongdoing. A parasite, gripping hard, and you don’t even realize it.”

Lucifer’s mouth falls in shock. As far as he’s aware, Lucilius and Sandalphon have never met. The Sandalphon lurking in Lucilius’ brain doesn’t match even the worst flaws of the Sandalphon he knew. “Why would you say that?”

“Honestly,” Lucilius sneers, “don’t tell me you haven’t already thought of it. Once he’s through with you, he’ll throw you away. Better to put him down before that happens.”

Lucifer shakes his head, adamant. No. _No._ “How would you know?”

“People use other people. Everyone knows that.”

“No. They don’t.”

Lucilius looks like he’d just been slapped. Lucifer studies Lucilius’ face illuminated by the moonlight, searching for his cousin, finding only a stranger. The cold, gloved hand by his own is a memory. How Lucifer misses him.

“Why would you think that?”

Silence drowns Lucilius, slowly. 

“What happened to you?”

Lucilius floods, twists his face away before it gushes out. The waves and wind puncture the incomplete silence, as Lucifer watches the abyss overtake his other cousin. “The public burnt our home down, and then we became marionettes under the new family head. For our _protection_ .” His laugh sounds like a blaze finding something else to feed on. “They didn’t kill me, no. I was useful. Better to be a warm body walking than a cold corpse feeding worms. Years, used, until I _made_ myself free.”

“Lucio has been on the force for a long time. Since then, were you also—”

“Lucio,” Lucilius snarls, the hiss of a freshly drawn knife, “left me to rot. He found an escape route and he took it. He promised it would be the two of us against the world, and he _lied_. Him and his lofty ideals, worthless pride, caring so much about family.” Spark, ignition, blaze. “I hate them. The people who wanted my head, the dons who betrayed us for power of their own, the ones who ran. I hate them all.”

Fire, fire. It has charred his cousin down to coal. He’s been burning for far too long; now the flames are part of him. 

And Lucifer, his mind screams _danger_ , but he doesn’t have a weapon to protect him from the coming violence. Unarmed, he wraps himself around those flames. He still can’t see Lucilius’ face, only the tufts of his hair smelling faintly of cigarettes. “I should have taken you with me. I should have convinced my parents to hide you out in the trunk, anything.” But instead, he did nothing. This is all his fault...

An exhale, cautious. Lucilius does not hug him back, but he doesn’t break free. They sit there, the moon, the waves, the fog, the smoke. 

“Father never would have let me leave.” Lucilius’ voice sounds too distant. “Some things are inevitable. If only… but it happened, and there is no changing it.”

“Not this fire,” Lucifer says, “You can change this one. If you do, I swear I’ll...” 

Lucilius goes rigid before Lucifer can finish speaking. He twists out of the embrace, focusing his blade-tip eyes on Lucifer’s own. “This one. As opposed to what?”

Admittedly, Lucifer doesn’t know, and he says so. 

Wrong answer. The blaze plunges deep and swirls, shadows before a thunderstorm. “Lucio,” comes the void, “Lucio. Of course.”

Lucifer doesn’t understand. He doesn’t know anything that’s been going on, and even if he’s done all that he could, he’s still so far out of the loop. “What fire?”

Pitch black, claustrophobic even in with the entire horizon before them. The look Lucilius gives him is a whisper to stop, but Lucifer will not be deterred. Light is in Lucilius’ eyes, awful and terrible, but it’s not anger. Not at him. 

No louder than the wind, “Do you remember my experiments?” Lucilius always did like his chemicals, seeing what would react with what. The more bombastic and brighter, the better. “Once, I succeeded.”

Ice pierces Lucifer through his heart. It must have shown on his face, because Lucilius shirks back like he’d just been stabbed. 

Deep down, Lucifer’s thoughts had already pointed to that direction. How could that bomb have gotten into the stronghold that was the Astrale household? Even to insiders, how could they have slipped undetected into Lucilius’ rooms? Success was possible, but extremely unlikely. Unless the culprit had access to the room in the first place.

When his world turned white, the aftermath was a whirlwind of doctor’s appointments. His mother shouting on the phone; even across the room he could feel her fury. Less than a month later, all his notebooks and clothes were packed into boxes, and his family drove away from the house he’d known his entire life.

Lucilius signs off _hate_ and points to himself, whether it’s a question or a condemnation is unclear. 

Does he hate Lucilius? Lucifer remembers how sound blossomed naturally before, and now it remains walled off. The bomb caused the fog, and Lucilius is responsible for that. But now, years later, the fog is melded into his ears. He no longer mourns it. Lucifer shakes his head.

Bottled emotions billow out of Lucilius’ posture, but his face remains grim in disbelief. Still expecting the worst, as always. “I see.”

Lucifer starts for another word, but Lucilius closes his hand around them. A kiss on his cheek, a short second of warmth and then nothing. “You can’t change my finale, Lucifer. But you’ve done enough. You’re the only blood I have left. Don’t make it so that...”

Lucifer opens his mouth, saying, “Cousin,” but Lucilius returns with, “Brother.”

Something tickles Lucifer’s palm, and their fingers separate to a train ticket expiring in a few days, one way to Lucifer’s hometown. 

Standing, Lucilius cuts a figure across the dark waters. “Auntie and Uncle were smart, pulling you away when you were young. It’s been a few years since you went home. I’m sure they miss you.”

A blue one-way mark in the corner of the ticket shimmers, laughing. Lucifer swallows. “But Sandalphon.”

“Of course,” Lucilius says, mirthless smile a jagged line in the moonlight, bowing his head. Shadowlines creak the old dock planks, polished soles on salted wood, then no sound. 

A weight tips in Lucifer’s palm. _Go, or else you die here._

* * *

The morning star does not penetrate the thick walls of their safe house.

Lucilius wakes to nothing, the ambient glow of the darkness radiating outward. He is sprawled on his stomach, face pressed to the pillows with the warmth of his partner at his side. A hand at his waist anchors him steady. Presently, when his facilities have returned to him, he withdraws from the grip and explores the absence present in the room.

The way to the kitchen is dark. The refrigerator lets off a soft light. He finds the tea bags by touch. He turns the kettle on with a soft _beep_ and waits for the water to boil. He fingers two cups and traces their rims, contemplating the end. It will come, soon, enveloping all. But…

He is unused to these moments of calm. Lucilius is, without fail, always chasing.

Chasing necessarily discards the lingering thoughts that want to drag him down. The sharp memories try to stab into him with their shards of anguish. Lucifer, lying on the floor, no longer able to hear his voice. Lucio, unharmed, trying to usher the two of them to safety.

Lucio, always safe, perfectly safe, leaving him to the wolves when the first opportunity presented itself.

Belial’s not yet stirred when Lucilius brings the two cups of lemon tea to their bedside. He leaves the second cup on the nightstand and contemplates why he bothered in the first place. The ring on his finger is a testament, but that means nothing in the real world. He is not kindness; he is vigilance, and Belial is his accompanying desperation.

Belial: a second thought to every plan; a contingency. It was Djeeta that Lucilius persuaded to leave the city. Belial remains at his side. The very same, Lucifer stands with the police force, and Lucilius is certain that he would never be able to convince him to be gone. And yet, Belial.

Belial will plunge into the depths of hell with him. He will enjoy the entire ride down. He lies, but only so much. He is open in his desire with Lucilius, whether he is spreading his legs or opening his mouth in supplication. He wants to be loved. He loves, so he stays.

Emotions are not a factor in the ending of a city and its cycle of putrid rebirth. Yet—

Belial stirs at his side. He makes a long groan turn into a soft exhale, extending his arms outward. He does not find Lucilius where he should be, nestled in bed, and he opens his eyes. Even through the blackness, he detects the warmth and scent of tea right next to him.

He comes to a seated position and brings the cup into his hands, blowing across its top. His eyes, unused to the black of pure night, continue to search. He gropes with a blind hand until he finds Lucilius’ braced against the sheets.

Their fingers curl together by habit.

“For me?” he drawls, the notes of happiness curling through the air and tainting it a faint pink. “You shouldn’t have.”

Lucilius grunts, refusing to deign the waxy words with a response.

Belial pauses to take a sip and seems to find the flavor agreeable. He nudges himself closer, closer, so he leans on Lucilius’ back. Lucilius permits the weight. It would be Belial’s nature to fill the room with ceaseless chatter, so much as to give Lucilius a headache, force him to retreat into the confines of another room just to hear his own thoughts again.

Belial does not.

After a few irate moments, Lucilius finally badgers, “Well?”

“Well what?”

“Aren’t you going to babble nonsense?”

Belial laughs softly and digs his nose into the white of Lucilius’ crown. “Do you want me to?”

“Absolutely not.”

“Then I won’t.”

And so they sit in that silence. It settles like the heavy water of a bog. His wristwatch tells him it’s close to 5 in the morning. In hours, the grand finale will begin. They will be split apart by their separate tasks, together only for the slightest of moments for the consecration. 

Belial sags against him after he’s drained his cup of tea. He encourages Lucilius with kisses to the back of his neck— to the scars there, and everywhere else— to finish his own. They place two cups on the nightstand, where a book called _Eulogies_ and a magazine called _Escapism_ both sit half-read. Belial folds his hands into Lucilius’ lap. He begins to mutter something low, under his breath, the familiar, dancing tone of Latin brushing up against his ear.

“Are you _praying?_ ”

“Oh, I don’t believe in any god except for you, sweetheart,” assures Belial, sealing the deal with another kiss to Lucilius’ cheek. “I’m just giving us some insurance.”

Lucilius’ face turns into an expression of consternation. “There is no need to appeal to a hopeless higher power. There is no way we will fail.”

“That’s right. That’s right. But I like to make sure everybody’s taken care of in the heat of the moment.”

“If you’re going to spit out prayers,” growls Lucilius, “put your lips to better use.”

Useless fool. Belial turns Lucilius’ chin and kisses him deep.

They share nothing but kisses for an hour, folding together in bed, celebrating the beginning of certain demise.

* * *

Lucifer can’t sleep. Rest comes in spurts, twenty minutes where he’s untethered, and then someone’s snapped him right back into his body, where his joints are sluggish and achy and don’t fit right. 

So many parts of him feel like chaos. Lucio, feet flat against the floor, pen in hand, the slow metamorphosis of idealism into frigidity. He’d animate spaces, but all that energy came from a swamp that would never go away. Lucilius, living dead forced to walk, tangled up in the past. Intonant dark, calling him brother, resigned to burn. Lucifer, paragon of responsibility, helpless to watch his family fall. No, they’d already fallen, and he didn’t even know about it. 

Water— his throat is so dry it might crack at any moment. Lucifer puts on his slippers and starts walking, thinking of failure. Some good he is, when he can’t help the people he loves. Lucilius’ ticket sits in his pocket; even when he changed into his pajamas, he kept it close. _Go_ , it whispers. Abandon responsibility. Lucifer couldn’t convince Lucilius, and now his cousins are going to kill each other.

All those promises of doing good. What was the point?

“Isn’t it too early for breakfast?” When Lucifer comes to, he’s in a doorway, looking at Sandalphon sitting up in bed. Without windows, the only signifier of time is the clock on the wall. “Can’t sleep?” he quips, because Sandalphon will die sarcastic, but he slows when Lucifer nods his head. Biting his lip for a moment, he swallows down and shifts to one side of the bed.

They sit in silence, clock ticking minutes away on the wall. Lucifer glances at Sandalphon once, then shyly looks away. He doesn’t know what to ask, or what to say. Sandalphon buries his legs up in the sheets until he can’t take it anymore and throws his hands out in a challenge of _well?_

“I have been… thinking,” Lucifer murmurs.

“About whatever you had to do that you snuck out late last night?”

Lucifer looks down into his tangled fingers, guilty. He thought he’d been quiet enough, but there’s no hiding secrets from someone who lived pressing one ear to the concrete. The city will burn. Lucilius has always followed through on his promises. Lucifer, he is sworn to his duty and he can’t just turn around and run, but that’s not all he can do. He places the train ticket into Sandalphon’s hand.

Sandalphon squints his eyes at the small print, sees the town name, mouths it in understanding. The rest strikes fast, as he looks between Lucifer and the ticket, curving both pointer and thumb into two interlocking circles, then snapping them apart.

Panicked, Lucifer shakes his head. No, they’re not going to break up. 

“This is… where you grew up.”

Lucifer nods. One day he’ll explain the tangled web of his cousins and their different vengeances, but not knowing what’s on the horizon is the cruelest thing of all. All he can say is, “Fire’s coming.”

Sandalphon straightens up, knowing danger when he hears it. “When?”

He doesn’t know. Soon. Lucilius is patient, but he has been patient for a long, long time. He’s lit the match, and all that’s left is to let it fall. 

“Karteira said Cypher has been doing emergency drills,” Sandalphon mutters to himself. “What’s going to happen?”

Lucifer shakes his head. He is not part of Lucilius’ finale. He only pushes the ticket deeper into Sandalphon’s hand. Go, before it’s too late. 

“Where’s the other tickets?”

There are no other tickets. Lucifer doesn’t say that this was a gift from someone who loved him, stretching out one of the very last vestiges of his humanity. 

“Gabriel owns the house she lives in. It’s the only long-term money she has. What about Gran, Noa, the rest of them? Where are they going to stay? With your parents? For how long? Is your house even big enough?”

Lucifer doesn’t know that either. But people are resilient, and he knows Sandalphon is capable of enduring. 

“Fuck that,” Sandalphon snarls, showing all his teeth. “This place is my home. I’m not abandoning my family. And,” He grabs Lucifer by the shoulders, nails in flesh. “I’m not abandoning you either.”

Lucifer exhales. They are so close, less than a hand’s length between their noses. There is tenderness in the sharpness of Sandalphon’s nails, a lightning strike so precise. _Together_. He is a cactus with white flowers blooming between his spines, and Lucifer doesn’t want him to go. Tenor vibrations start at Lucifer’s fingers, as he mouths a sorry before pressing a kiss to Sandalphon’s cheek.

It lasts half a second, if not more. Sandalphon, for the confusion and sudden pink shade his cheeks have taken, does not pull away. He twists his lips, prepares some sort of comment, but swallows it down. He listens when Lucifer says, “I’m sorry. I want to protect you, but I’m doing it all wrong.”

Sandalphon sighs, claps his hands on Lucifer’s cheeks and pulls his head down. He pushes some of the hair away from Lucifer's face, and Lucifer exhales against the touch of Sandalphon's fingers. Apprehension and warmth travels down to Lucifer's stomach and Sandalphon says, "I can protect you too."

Lucifer inclines his head in agreement. He knows, he knows. 

The night has gone halfway into the morning sun when Sandalphon kisses Lucifer, properly this time. 

Their kisses have always been brief, quick pecks before a goodbye that sends Sandalphon running into the crowd, but now they take their time. Sandalphon reminds him how sweet breath is, how he is entropy and they will collide. There's no better moment than now. They're not out of time.

"Trust me," Sandalphon says, and Lucifer will. Lucifer guides Sandalphon's hand to his heart, letting his palm pick up the steady warmth of his heartbeat. 

"Oh," Sandalphon gasps, when his hand traces the scars on Lucifer's chest. There aren't many, but there is plenty; being on the active force means he's been sent to the hospital a few times over the years. 

And there are some on Sandalphon, peeking out from the edges of his sleeveless shirt, remnants of a life in the street, days spent running. "We match," Lucifer says, sheepish. 

Sandalphon rolls his eyes and kisses him again, this time with more vigor, tongues exploring. 

A small shock of guilty arousal. How long Lucifer has wanted to do this, but Sandalphon has always been secretive. Now Sandalphon is pushing him onto the pillows, straddling him, kissing a line across his neck. Lucifer exhales, leaning into the sensation. It's not the tiredness, but Lucifer feels lightheaded, like he's drunk or drowning. Every time Sandalphon reaches forward, touches like bird wings, he is there one moment and gone the next. It aches. He isn't used to so much attention at once. 

He draws a circle on Sandalphon's thigh, feeling the muscle there, and then cold. The ankle monitor echoes cool and metallic. Sandalphon tucks it under some rumpled sheets, gulping. He gasps and almost laughs. Sandalphon quirks an eyebrow, _what's so funny_ loud and clear, but Lucifer is still so charmed by the fact that Sandalphon has always known what he's wanted. It took Sandalphon to realize that Lucifer's had the same wants, that they have come together upon this one shared dream. 

Somehow, that makes Sandalphon laugh too. The absurdity of it all, joining together in a police safe house, a cop and a criminal. Lucifer puts a hand on the back of Sandalphon's neck and pulls him down, murmurs Sandalphon’s name into his hair. 

"We," Sandalphon says, half-gasp and half-stutter, "are absurd."

They are. Lucifer wouldn't have it any other way. 

Their worship is an equal one, matching one kiss with another in turn, trading touches, a constellation of dark marks with another speckle. Neither are sure whether to remain gentle or be hungry, twisting to a rhythm that accepts both. 

Lucifer gasps when Sandalphon reaches down to cup him through his boxers. Which to pinpoint: the knowing smile on Sandalphon's face, the firmness of his grip, how his own exhale rattles his brain, the frantic drumbeat of his heart and surging pulse. Too much; Lucifer feels like he's floating. 

He moans Sandalphon’s name, but he wants more, more—

A low rumble shakes the room. Lucifer jumps, heat-haze gone from his mind, falling off the bed, running out of the room. He can feel the floorboards jump as Sandalphon struggles after him, but his heart is frantic to process it all. He knows that sound: he knows how it feels in every trace of his skin, the last sound he ever heard properly before the world turned into fog. 

At the window, morning light filtering through, the expanse of the city. Low buildings, tiled roofs, and in the distance, a plume of dark smoke. Chimney exhaust blows thin into the sky, but this billows black and thick, debris and laughter. 

Fire. 


	4. nightfall

The sickly smell of kerosene.

The dozens of empty red canisters.

The blue morning light refracted in a rainbow by the stained glass windows.

The yellow-gold of the candelabras upon the altar.

“Having fun?” Belial calls.

The brown lacquered oak of the pew he sits upon.

The forest green of the emunctorium, the altar cloth, that Lucilius gathers between his hands.

The black of the absolute shadows hiding in the corners of the church, where the light won’t touch.

“Yowch. I’m getting a headache from the fumes,” Belial complains.

The purple of the light in the air, filled with dust particles, desperation masquerading as peace.

The pink and the  _ click _ of Belial’s smartphone, the glow from his wallpaper when he starts to pull up information on how harmful breathing in kerosene can be.

The grey of the gas mask he wears, every filtered inhale and purified exhale audible throughout the worship hall’s 300 metres.

The orange of the match he will burn.

The cyan of the brightest bloom of flame that will envelop the cathedral.

The white of the ash that will fall between his fingers when all is said and done.

Yet this is only the beginning.

Bit-by-bit. Can-by-can. He uncaps a new gas canister, lugging it towards the pews.

Belial glances at him. His face is naked. He is half-naked, actually. The black coat he wears strains against his muscles, even though it’s only a single button that he’s done up.

“Are you trying to cause a fire or an explosion?”

Lucilius splashes the kerosene towards him. Belial anticipates this. He slides out of the way, landing in the walkway between pews, his boa gathered wildly around them. He shifts the feathers out from in front of his mouth, looking like a very bemused peacock.

Belial soothes, “Don’t worry, honey. I think you’re very sexy in your apocalypse outfit.”

He huffs and continues to decorate the pews in their end. His stola whips about with the aggression of every movement. This isn’t just any cathedral they’re burning.

( _ Laughter. Smoke. Men sitting across from each other in a card room. His nose tickles, but he can’t sneeze.  _ _ His father extends his cup and Lucilius wordlessly refills it. The rage is a nauseous feeling clawing up from his stomach. He’s long since realised it. He’s only twelve. _

_ So what? _ )

“The original creed,” Lucilius says, voice crackling through the mask, “celebrated poverty and humility. This was a psychological self-justification by the fools living under the thumb of Rome’s anti-monotheistic policies.”

“I love it when you use big words,” purrs Belial.

“Then, after the glory of Rome faded, the Dark Ages. When the European world came into what they called the ‘Renaissance,’ humility was no longer  _ en vogue _ .”

“And you speak French!” exclaims Belial, drawing himself to his feet.

“For the glory of God, they built the tallest structures, painted the most elaborate illustrations they could think up. They gave vision to the scenes from Biblical history. They discarded the possibility for worshipers to imagine their God as someone like them.”

Belial nods along, keeping his mouth shut this time.

Lucilius’ expression becomes grim, the furrow of his brow hidden behind the mask. His words arrive under a considerable amount of pressure. “‘This is God. This is Adam. This is Eve.’ A celebration of the vision of a few men. Somehow, this was supposed to be a good thing.”

( _ Every Sunday, they came to this cathedral. The memories of baptism crawl over his skin. _

_ Once upon a time, a younger shell of who he was thought of asking his father why he was named for the Devil.  _ _ But Lucilius understood, better than anyone, why that was so. _

_ The morning star. The giver of knowledge to the ignorant. The one who awakens the world.  _

_ He was perfect. Lucifer was perfect.  _ _ Lucilius was the first. Imperfect. Cousin he might have been, but Lucifer was his reimagining. He would bring the world peace and prosperity. The mid-day sun. _

_ Lucio. The morning breath of light. He would always be ignorant. Foolish. Poisonous. _

_ And Lucilius in the middle. The middle, yet he would bring the sunset.  _ _ Because all things must end. _ )

Regarding him, Belial offers Lucilius a small smile. “You really hate this place.”

“I absolutely despise this place.”

The Stardrift Sanctuary. He learned his verses and songs here. He sat with many people, surrounded by Astrale. He came to know the way they loved God in the static image of a man. Just like them.

_ It is wrong to pervert God _ , they said.  _ You shall not have any idols before me _ , it was said.

If God is an equation with variables aplenty, then Lucilius makes a simple substitution.

Substitute G for L. Solve for infinity.

Make yourself the God, so no others may come before you.

Lucilius tosses the last canister to the ground.

“Let’s begin.”

* * *

Fire.

You can’t burn mud. There’s not enough organic compounds to light it up. When you can’t count on the skies to bring you a rainstorm, you can always turn to the dirt. It’s one of the most effective ways to bring a fire down.

Shalem stays crouched in her perch above the bomb site. Smoke threatens to choke her. The bomb squad is already on the move, followed by firefighters ready to assess the damage. See the loss of human life. 

But there wasn’t anyone there.

This is only the first building that’s going to burn. She knows it. She can feel it in her thickened blood.  The old metal creaks as the support beams give way. The firefighters exclaim sharply, darting out when the building’s frame collapses to the side. She turns her head to the side. Just beyond the police tape, there’s a camera crew gathering to make an official report.

Good morning, Treylant. Your city is falling apart.

The destroyed structure had a name: the Tower of Hope. It was neither a tower nor a bastion of hope. It was a place their men spent long hours staking out, watching the flow of mafia families gather for meetings inside. It was old, like an elderly man with skin stretched thin across his face. She’s not sad to see it go.  The next building to go will most certainly be --

‘ _ Commander _ ,’ comes the voice on her radio, usurping all of Shalem’s attention. She detaches the walkie-talkie from her belt, holding it up to her mouth.

“What?”

‘ _ Do you have visual just outside of the site _ ?’

She glances up. Her brow furrows like she’s gone cross. Most of all, she’s confused.

“Those aren’t reporters.”

‘ _ No. We think they’re from one of the Families. They-- wait-- _ ’

“What?” she snaps, the syllable falling apart on her tongue. She can see it for herself.

A pair of police officers come out to intercept the Family men. One of them, with orange hair pulled back in a knot, sneers. It must be a threat because the officers grow stiff and ready.

They reach for their tasers.

The Family men pull out a bat, a pipe.

She climbs to her feet, shouts a garbled order through the radio, but it’s much too late. The violence has already begun.

* * *

Another blaze erupts from somewhere nearby. The quaking is near-constant, now, not regular like an earthquake, but jumping, chaotic. Buildings are falling. Homes are being crushed. The city is being destroyed from the inside out.  When the next rumble sends a glass off the table in an unheard shatter, Lucifer pulls Sandalphon into his arms. He can feel Sandalphon’s lips working against the fabric of his shirt -- protesting, perhaps -- but he tucks his head under his chin and keeps him still until the newest quivering has subsided.

Now, when he pulls back, Sandalphon’s eyes are wide. “My family,” he murmurs, not once, but three times. “My family. My -- I have to --”

“We need to get you somewhere safe,” Lucifer says. He makes his expression firm, even though he’s unsure, at least on this point. He may not be able to hear the danger outside, but he can  _ feel _ it. It’s bouncing around, like a volleyball at the beach. The city itself isn’t safe.

They need to get outside. He thinks about the ticket in his pocket. He shuts his eyes. ( _ It’s just like you _ , a younger Lucilius says inside his head,  _ to fall for someone so stubborn _ .)

When he opens them, Sandalphon’s bending down, fussing with his shoes. Lucifer parts from him. He goes through the motions while his thoughts race on ahead. He gets his gun, his uniform, his jacket. He’s brought back from his rapid-fire planning by the logo on the back.  Police Department. It’s not the time for sentimental thoughts. But Lucifer finds his centre, studying the old stitching on the jacket, running a thumb over it. It’s the reason he wouldn’t flee when given the chance. It’s the very same reason Sandalphon won’t let himself be rescued. This is their home, and they have to protect it.

He emerges from the other room with a clear head. Sandalphon’s still bent over his feet near the door. Lucifer bends down to meet his level, patting him on the back to catch his eye.

Sandalphon’s face is slightly red from exertion. He looks like he’s just been swearing. “Get this off of me,” he snaps.

The ankle monitor. It’s flashing red. When Lucifer touches it, he can feel a small vibration running through the metal. The tamper mechanism has gone off and is screeching out its tinny protest. Sandalphon fusses with it some more, and it tugs at his skin ineffectually.

“In the kitchen,” Lucifer starts.

“ _ What _ ?”

“In the kitchen,” he repeats, louder, “there’s a pair of scissors. Can you go get them?”

Sandalphon studies him a moment before he lifts to his feet and takes off. The urgency with which he moves gets Lucifer’s blood pumping, too. The ground’s trembling is moving further away, sweeping into new and untouched sectors. He has to get going.

His boyfriend stumbles back into him, sitting down on the entrance divider and jutting his ankle back out. He passes a black pair of scissors over to Lucifer, eyes narrowed suspiciously.

Lucifer pauses. “Yes?”

“Where were these before?”

Of all the things to ask.

“We remove sharp objects from these homes,” he explains curtly. “These are my own pair.” And then: “Keep your leg steady.”

He lifts Sandalphon’s foot up, cradling it. Sandalphon’s face goes red. For a singular moment, they appear to share the same thought. It is not unlike the prince fitting Cinderella’s foot into the glass slipper. But as soon as Lucifer dives down with the scissors, Sandalphon flinches and kicks him in the face with his shoe.

Lucifer reels back. His face feels numb, and then pain dances through his awareness.

“Sorry! Sorry! Sorry!” Sandalphon chants, though Lucifer’s only aware of the mantra when he squints an eye back open. He touches his nose, and there’s blood running down his upper lip. He feels the set of the cartilage. Thankfully, it’s not broken. He shakes his head. “Are you ready?”

Sucking in a breath, perhaps settling back into the gravity of the situation, Sandalphon nods.

Lucifer gives him one last look before he strikes true. With sufficient force, the hinges break and snap, freeing Sandalphon from their prison. He moves the monitor aside before stabbing at the computer inside. He knows he’s succeeded when Sandalphon’s face floods with the relief of a quiet world.

They share a look.

“I’m going to go get my family,” Sandalphon declares. After the fact, he mumbles, “Thank you. For.” He gestures at the ankle monitor.

“...I have to report in. There are people I can save,” Lucifer replies. From Sandalphon’s crestfallen look, he can tell they’re sharing the same feeling again. Neither of them wants the other in danger. Neither wants to be separated. They have many unspoken problems, but --

Lucifer takes Sandalphon’s palm and kisses it. He stands up, joined by his partner a second after.

The door opens. They take off in separate directions.

Lucifer’s mind sharpens down to a fine point.

_ Lucilius. What have you done _ ?

* * *

_ Hey there!! _

_ At approximately 0700 GMT+2 this morning, bombs started going off across the city! _

_ Our families have always had a good relationship, haven’t they? _

_ This is my message to you,  _ Donna _ to  _ Don _. _

_ My sources tell me this is a huge move by the Astrale. Their one last hurrah. _

_ They’re going to take down the city. _

_ This is the town we grew up in. This is the town our children are going to inherit. _

_ We can’t just let them do that. _

_ I’m thinking the police are going to have their hands full evacuating the people and quelling the blasts. They’re going to be distracted. _

_ This is your chance to dive in and pick up territory. The Astrale aren’t going to tear us apart. When the dust settles, every family is going to respect the old rules. Your claim, your area. _

_ All you have to do is get in there and take it. _

_ And all I want is for this to be finished. _

_ Keep your family members safe, and keep me updated! _

_ Love, _

_ Djeeta _

Every family gets the same message. It’s like an RSVP card to a ball. It’s an invitation to their wedding, long-overdue, no apologies given.  Lucilius purses his lips at the content of the message.

“What’s wrong?” Belial asks, leaning over to press a kiss into his shoulderblade. The city cracks beneath their feet, a constant, unwavering sound. Azazel is doing good work.

“If they collude, they’ll immediately see through your ruse.”

“So they will,” agrees Belial. He shuts his laptop, giving a knock to the metal case for luck. “But it won’t be our reputation that suffers.”

Lucilius scoffs.

“Whatever reputation we have left.”

“Our reputation,” Lucilius tells him plainly, “is shattered. It was no better when you failed to kill the chief of police. It was no better when you missed the shot meant to take out Lucifer’s toy.”

“So what you’re saying,” Belial murmurs, “is that everything’s been downhill since we got married?” He falls over, his head landing in Lucilius’ lap. “Now  _ that’s _ harsh.”

“You’ve been on a downward spiral ever since we were wed. Had I not know better, I would think you were planning sabotage.”

Belial looks up into his eyes. “Do you know better?”

Lucilius meets his gaze, even, cold as ice. “Of course I do.”

It makes him break into a grin, and he falls all over again.

They’ve negotiated a vantage point close to the first explosive break-out, far out enough not to be noticed. Lucilius lifts a pair of army-grade binoculars to his face, following Azazel’s bombastic trail. They could be hidden away in a bunker, watching the carnage on any number of city security screens. They could be playing it safe, Lucilius’ last gambit unfolding from their hands like a blooming flower. They could be in bed and Lucilius could be going down, down, making a journey with his tongue--

“Ow,” Belial says, but without much enthusiasm. He rubs his nose, feeling the pink skin where Lucilius smacked it with the opponens of his palm. (That’s the part beneath his thumb. Lucilius taught him the muscular anatomy, once, when they were still boys who hated each other and sometimes kissed.) “What was that for?”

“You’re becoming distracted.” Lucilius doesn’t even glance away from his scope.

Belial makes a face. “How can you tell?”

“You breathe more quickly when you’re thinking of fornication.”

He moans his delight into the air. He can  _ hear  _ the furrow of his husband’s brow. “Tell me what else I should be doing right now.”

“Observing the men we’ve planted. Keeping an eye on our back-up munitions. Monitoring the response of each family to the message.”

“I can  _ hear _ that last one,” he disagrees, turning his face into Lucilius’ thighs. It blocks out the sight of the morning sun, the black brick of the rooftop they’re sitting on, the smoke billowing into the clouds. “The rhythm of the city’s changed.”

“And how can you tell?” Lucilius replies sceptically.

Belial grins, incisors sharp. “You breathe more quickly when things go according to plan.”

Lucilius rests a hand atop his hair. He waits with bated breath, anticipating the harsh tug of punishing fingers. Yet it doesn’t come. The hand stays where it’s settled, fingers pushing strands around without a vocal answer.

It’s not affirmation, but it’s enough. The city rocks and it travels quickly through their veins.

* * *

They have heard the news. The whispers on the radio waves are a promise. The time for revenge has come. Their minds all throb with the same thought: fight for family, for glory and power, for the greatness of tomorrow where they will stand above the rest. In the sunlight, they bite at whatever they can manage, all to drag more into their claws. 

The stone has turned over. Underneath the rotting wood are all the veined nests. Those that were predators in the dark are prey under the sun. They meet the soldier ants that patrol in the light, having surrounded them on all sides, and realize that their ambition has doomed them.

A cornered animal can still fight, can kill. They gather their guns, their blades, their cars, and beat down the cobblestones bloody. 

* * *

Iceland is lovely this time of year.

Lyria’s been enjoying the natural hot springs. Percival has gone off to see the volcanoes in the local area. Anila’s made friends with all of the sheep, returning at sunset with fabric shorn from her skirts and a new scarf made of wool. Rosine has, impossibly, shouldered her way into a local baking club. (She’s also taken a young, twenty-something lover. Yuck!)

In this foreign land, the only remaining constant is her family. In this foreign land, the only remaining constant is Rackam’s stress-filled sigh, lamenting the expense of buying two dozen tickets, last-minute, to go across the sea.

“How are you going to break the news to them?”

Djeeta turns her uplifting smile towards Ilsa. Ilsa is not as engaging a tea partner as her  _ other friend _ . She does, however, carry the same scepticism, the same caution that has her wearing knives under her shawl, even on vacation. Especially on vacation.

“I’m not sure yet!” she admits, prompting the arching of a dark eyebrow. She passes the plate of sugared pastries over. “Kleina?”

Ilsa picks up one of the Icelandic treats delicately, but tears into it with the fierceness of a soldier eating rations on the field. She’s restless, anxious. She’s been one of Djeeta’s most powerful assets. Her knowledge of weapons and tactics is unparalleled.

She turns her head toward the screen on her computer. With a press of the Enter key, she can track any of the security cameras installed on the outside of the city. Half of the feeds are hers; the other half were  _ kindly _ provided by Belial.

Tapping into a feed of the main site of activity, Djeeta sits back, bringing a cup of angelica tea to her lips. She’s made a conscious choice to pull her family out of the action. She’s opened herself up, for the first time, to manipulation by another power. She’s not stupid. She  _ knows _ they’re going to use her street cred to stir up chaos.

Ilsa shifts in her seat, pursing her lips, waiting for an answer. “Commander?”

“Oh! Sorry.” Djeeta blinks and looks at her, smiling apologetically. She sets her tea cup down on its saucer and folds her hands. “You know what we’re going to come back to, right?”

A punctured sigh marks Ilsa’s answer. “A ruined city.”

“Right. We might not even have a base to go back to. Of course, there’s our underground bunker, but that’s not what I mean.”

“I would never argue with your orders,” Ilsa begins quietly. “But…”

“I’m not ordering you around!” Djeeta laughs. She reaches over to touch Ilsa’s hand. Ilsa, for her part, seems to enjoy the touch, but shies away from it.

With her next words, Djeeta’s facial expression gets serious. “I’m not going to put my family in harm’s way. There was no stopping this tide.  _ But _ .” Her face eases. “Once we get back, we can begin to rebuild. It’ll be an adventure!”

The soldier cants her head. She turns her gaze to the side. The laptop shows billows of smoke, fires spouting across the city landscape. Outside, the scenery of Reykjavík is peaceful, green and luscious and everything their home is not.

Djeeta watches her. She’s a secret even to her family. Not all of them will be happy with her decision.  _ But _ . What is she, if not the leader of a family who are all loyal beyond belief? And it’s not even about their loyalty, really. It’s about their safety.

“Commander,” Ilsa wonders, “can you call a city ‘home’ when you know the place you will return to will never be the same?”

Lucilius is going to bring their city down. Probably. Or maybe the police will be more resilient than they all think. Even with all of her knowledge, her fingers pressed to the pulse of the town, she can’t say for sure who’s going to come out on top.

A bloom of sunlight catches her eye, and Djeeta shuts the laptop. Right now it’s the pre-game. The show’s only going to get hotter from here.

“A home isn’t the place you know,” she tells Ilsa, “but the people you’re with. The family is my home. Kleina?”

Ilsa takes another snack, expression troubled.

Djeeta spreads her arms out over the table, leaning forward with a thoughtful sigh.

* * *

Storefront shops remain torn open, their windows smashed in. Looters grab what they can, but they don’t stay long in case those that follow have blades between their fingers. People flee for their lives, others have pushed furniture in front of their doors and windows in hopes of keeping any intruders out. A thick layer of dust has already formed on Lucifer’s shoes, and he’s only run a few streets. 

Panic clouds, but Lucifer hears his mother’s stern voice:  _ Eyes open, find the root of the problem, then you’ll know what to do _ . He needs to get to higher ground. Running inside a building now when fires are devouring them one by one is a bad idea, so he climbs atop a car and focuses down the street. 

The assailants all have their phones open, or they’re checking them routinely. Something is coming off the waves, goading them on. Besides that, they don’t seem to be taking orders from any leader, or their leader is far out of sight. They tangle with innocent people as much as they tangle with each other; it’s not a unified effort. No smoke behind him but the inner section of the town is burning; they must have started in the center and are fanning out. 

Something snags his ankle, and his back hits the car roof. A woman pulls him to the ground, teeth bared, brick in hand. Pain explodes in his shoulder when he jerks to the side, where is his baton--

The weight is lifted off him. A hand comes before him, and he knows the pattern of scars on that palm. Seox lunges down, snapping the woman’s wrists in zipties before hauling her aside. “Lucifer! What are you doing here?” 

There will be time for thanks later. “Radio!” Lucifer yells. “Get me Seofon!”

Seox barks into the one clipped by his belt, then tosses it Lucifer’s way. A sudden boom in the distance sends his head ringing. He can’t make out the exact voice on the radio with the noise around him, but what comes through the disaster sounds vaguely-Seofon. Seox wouldn’t make the mistake of calling the wrong person. “All the instigators are looking at their phones,” Lucifer shouts out. “If we shut down communications, then--”

Seox mouths, “Good call, anything else?”, a mirror of Seofon over the radio. 

“The chaos hasn’t spread to the outer perimeters of the city yet. If we can corral them all into one place, then we can arrest them en masse-- maybe the center plaza--”

The thrum of Seofon’s voice vibrates, as Seox translates the response. “Seofon’s going to contact the rest of the chiefs. We’re going to be forming a united front.” He jerks his chin towards the street,  _ how far up does the chaos go? _

“Three blocks.” Although by now, it’s likely four.

“Good.” Seox pulls Lucifer to his feet, hands him his baton and his gun. “Lead the way. We’re putting a stop to this.”

* * *

A sweet dream has become a nightmare and Sandalphon is trapped. He’d thought he was past the deepest kind of fear. He’d seen the whites of Gabriel’s eyes when she shook him awake and wedged him between the coats in the closet. She kicked aside the boxes on the floor and clapped a hand over his mouth before hurrying the doors shut. Darkness. Nothing but the slatted blinds on the closet door. 

Gabriel’s heart hammering in his ears. 

The scraping of his teeth on his lower lip. 

Outsider’s voices. Furniture being upturned.

Louder, now. A man yelling. 

Gunshots.

Deep silence. 

Light split the closet in two as Michael opened the doors, blood splattered over her cheek. She looked so weary, the lines on her face deep trenches. No energy to smile, not even to say that it was finally over. No resistance when the police came days later and led her away in handcuffs. Wasn’t that supposed to be hell? 

Now his home is wreathed in flames. Heat molds into his face as soon as he takes a step up the stoop. Smoke blackens his lungs and dust stings his eyes. One step closer, and the flames bite his hand, daring him to proceed. He screams until it echoes inside his skeleton, first from pain, then from fury. Fine then, take his fingers! Take the rest of his body too! But don’t dare stop him here, he has to get inside, he has to make sure everyone made it out--

“Sandalphon!” Gran’s voice, not a ghost. A flesh-and-blood boy, running his way. He is all tears, snot dribbling down his nose when he grabs Sandalphon’s fire-seared fingers and pulls him off the stoop. 

There in the shadow of a building husk, is Gabriel, trying to shush a panicked Arusha. When she sees him, she calls his name and clutches him so tight he thinks his shoulders might dislocate. 

* * *

Lucilius doesn’t like going on rooftops-- the tar paper sticks to his shoes and the sunlight beats down on his skin. The air is soupy, the daytime fog mixing with smoke and exhaust. The press of crowded people reeks. In the distance, traffic and the roar of wayward sirens echo, the rabble cloying for order. So the ants have found the pattern. It will not save them; if Lucio survives, he’ll be lucky if he’s let off with just a resignation. Weed out the rotted roots. Let the entire structure collapse.

How long has he waited to see this sight? To see smoke scar the sky, to watch it all fall down? A line creases his brow. There is no delight in his hollow chest where it should be humming warmly. Numbness dulls everything in endless white. 

Into the radio, “Belial.”

“Yes, my love?” comes static, eager to hear his every word. 

“You’ve done enough. Return, now.”

“Can’t you ask me to come home, nice and sweet?”

Lucilius drops the radio off the roof and doesn’t wait to hear it crash to the ground. 

The bed of their current safehouse hasn’t been used, not even for a quick nap. There is far too much work to do. Lucilius creases the sheets for the first time with his weight, digging under the bed for one of his bags. Out comes two glasses lipped with gold. He uncorks a hundred year bottle for this day and lets it breathe for the first time. The deep red is a stain on the pristine room, but Lucilius watches it until the red bleeds out from beyond the glasses, up the walls, onto the floor--

The telltale sound of a door creaking open. “Sorry I’m late. Traffic was hell on the way back.” Lies. Lucilius knows he cut a path through the madness with absolute ease. 

“Come lie down with me.” 

“In the middle of all this? Aren’t you adventurous? I’ll get the lube.” 

“No, you fool. I’m tired.”

Obediently, Belial comes to his side, as he always does. Lucilius takes one of the wine glasses and pushes it into Belial’s hands. He stares unblinking at the liquid inside before asking, “Usually I pour the drinks. Is this a special occasion?”

“You know why.”

Hate burned his body blue, but now that the final piece has fallen, he feels the embers dying out. The curtain falls on the performance, now it’s time for the players to come into the light. Lucilius is not exempt from the Astrale legacy. Cursed blood flows through his veins as much as it does in Lucio. If all connected to his father must be purged, then his time must come. There are no exceptions in the apocalypse. 

Belial is not Astrale, not originally. He is only Astrale through their marriage, through Lucilius’ wretched legacy. Belial knew this but he stayed by Lucilius’ side regardless; his love, his accomplice. Neither of them will be brought to justice. 

If Lucio hasn’t been killed, he will come for Lucilius. He knows his brother’s stubbornness better than anyone else. A body cannot be brought to Lucio’s facsimile of justice and Belial will guard Lucilius’ body until the very end. If they don’t kill him on the spot, they will torture his soul out through court procedings. Lucilius can mix fire to make explosives, he can mix poison as well. It will go down a little bitter at first, but it will be peaceful. Belial is his accomplice, his husband. He will not allow his body to be disgraced in death.

“Is it going to hurt?”

“No more than falling asleep.”

Belial spins the glass by its stem, puts it back down besides its twin. “First, I think I deserve a prize, don’t you think?”

“For what, exactly?”

“I did a pretty good job out there, didn’t I? Making them run, making them scatter, doing such hard work… after all that, I deserve a reward.”

Lucilius rubs his temples. By now, the red of the wine has spilled into the sky. “Fine.”

Belial snags him in a tight hold. Lucilius chokes at the sudden contact; the hand against his back, the other in his hair. “One last hug from Lucilius Astrale,” comes Belial’s voice, dark and silky. The world explodes around them and Belial insists on meaningless affection. Lucilius heaves a sigh, and wraps his arms around Belial in turn. He will allow this one indulgence. 

Lucilius jerks back, a match flaring to light. His hand comes away from his neck dotted with blood and half a broken syringe before he tumbles to the ground. 

“Careful, you snapped the needle inside you. That could poke something important.”

The pulse in his neck quickens, his jaw cracking under his rage. Up in his brain, his thoughts reach a crescendo,  _ betrayal, Belial betrayed me. _ It wasn’t something he didn’t take into consideration, whatever absurdity Belial had planned would not reverse the grand finale, but to think-- to think that Belial of all people, had the audacity to--

Lucilius’ heart boils, his muscles a miserable ball of pain. A cold burst of fear warns him; his vision’s swimming, his body’s shutting down. Whatever Belial stuck him with is working fast. He has no idea what Belial is planning, and if Belial wants to crawl miserably, then Lucilius is tearing the world into his own shape first. He forces himself onto his stomach, sticks his tongue between his teeth, and slams his head down.

Belial who always knew, Belial who catches his chin with his palm before it hits the floor, Belial who stuffs a piece of cloth into his mouth. “That radical deviance, ah, I love that about you.” His grin widens, teeth gleaming white.

It’s a thin piece of cloth. If Lucilius puts his mind to it, he could sever part of his own tongue and bleed out slowly. But his jaw has gone slack, his power has left him, all that remains is the hollow and ash.

“I’ll take care of everything,” comes that wicked, cunning promise. 

* * *

Lucifer slums back onto the sidewalk, the shell of a car the only thing keeping his back upright. His breath puffs gray in the dust, all his exhaustion he’d staved back finding his body anew. Reports come rolling in over the radio; the situation has been contained, the fires are being put out. It’s finally over. 

To tell the truth, he barely remembers what happened. It was all orders and formation, knives and bullets clashing against his body armor. Siete put Eahta in charge, and he remembers the old veteran boldly plunging through the crowd. When he tells Tien about it, she kindly offers, “That happens in… intense situations.” He can’t remember much of what happened after the glaring red of the explosion that robbed him of his ears, either. 

He stumbles to a nearby cafe, emptied of people but the TV still buzzing along contently to an audience of one. The news shows live reports from a helicopter overhead, gutted buildings and debris and smoke staining the sky from on high. The subtitles across the screen speak of chaos, more concerned with the overall situation than explaining details. Questions of why this happened, live updates, details on evacuation centers. 

“Lucifer,” Tien calls from outside. “Seofon wants you to rendezvous with him at the downtown sports stadium. I’ll drive you.” 

Surely they would have converted such a large place into an emergency shelter. Gutted buildings, shattered windows, and skeletons of steel spires are everywhere they pass. Lucifer touches the car’s handlebar once and it comes away slick with sweat. His heartbeat echoes loud in the back of his neck. Has Sandalphon made it to safety? Did he find his family? Is he still alive? The thought of their recent parting being their last sends a blade into Lucifer’s heart. The disaster has been quelled; now he needs to find Sandalphon.

Makeshift stretchers have been laid out to help the injured, and medical tents stand in every cardinal corner. People mill around on the field, some in the stands, all trying to grasp some control in chaos. Several policemen and firefighters make rounds through the crowd, but Lucifer can’t find Seofon’s signature tangled blonde hair.  He drifts, scanning every person for the hope of a familiar face. There are many evacuation centers, this is only the largest, Sandalphon might not even be here, Sandalphon--

“Lucifer!”

Lucifer’s heart leaps into his chest. Two isles away is Sandalphon, left side of his face swollen with a blackened bruise and band-aids littered across his fingers. Sandalphon is running now, nearly barreling over a man on crutches, wide-eyed and panicked. Why can’t Lucifer move his feet? He should be running to meet Sandalphon, but all his energy has flooded away with exhaustive relief-- Sandalphon is alive, he’s alive, he’s okay--

The world tips over as Sandalphon knees him square in the chest. Lucifer stumbles back and Sandalphon howls in pain, rubbing his kneecap where it connected square with Lucifer’s body armor. Sandalphon lets loose a stream of curses and Lucifer panics, kneeling down to Sandalphon’s level. A hand snatches him by the collar and Sandalphon shoves his face into his. “Why does everything you do have to be about duty?”

Lucifer blinks, robbed of words. 

“You had to take your things and run off to  _ do the right thing!  _ Isn’t it enough to maybe be by my side? To help me the way I want to be helped? For so long, I didn’t know if you died out there, they were cutting down the police too--“ Sandalphon’s voice is disturbingly coarse, shoulders shivering. Just when Lucifer thinks Sandalphon will break like a bent wire, he is pulled into an embrace. Sandalphon, dust and smoke and beneath those still smells of the coffee they’d made the evening before. “Don’t do that again,” Sandalphon’s hand in Lucifer’s hair, gripping the strands so tight like they were tethering him down. “Don’t.”

Lucifer breaks free of his petrification to hug Sandalphon back, for the fires have been put out, he can relish in his love once again. “I won’t.”

“Good,” Sandalphon mutters, and that is a promise for the rest of their lives. 

A few paces away awkwardly stands Seofon, not sure how to break the moment. “I should report this as a conflict of interest but…” He rubs his chin in thought, “maybe I can forget to write something down the books, just once.”

* * *

Lucilius comes to in fog and smoke. He feels drunk, like someone has played percussion with his skull. Something smells too clean; sharp lime of floor cleanser and recently opened plastic. All around him is brown, where are the white walls and beige curtains he’s come to know? This is too nice for a prison cell, too nice for a hotel room to be held in awaiting trial.  Panic drifts into his bones and he makes to sit up, but something keeps him pinned down. His wrists are tied above his head with cord. He tries to bite down, but there’s a strip of cloth in his mouth. He digs his heels into the mattress, but it isn’t enough momentum to dislodge the bindings. 

“Wake up, sleeping beauty.”

Today, Belial is an unwelcome sight, even when he bends over and removes the cloth from Lucilius’ mouth. In comes a breath of new air, and Lucilius runs his tongue over his teeth. Such confined kindness won’t be enough to save Belial. 

“Not even a good morning?”

Lucilius flattens him with a glare,  _ explain yourself _ .

“Your apocalypse had one flaw. If I love you so much, why would I want you gone? And if you have to go-- you can’t go like that.” All the amusement drains from Belial’s face, and he goes uncharacteristically serious. “Did you look in the mirror at all that day?”

He usually doesn’t. Either it’s because he knows Belial will tell him if he has a hair out of place or because sometimes under the halogens Lucio stares back at him. The apocalypse had no time for beauty. He never cared if his corpse was beautiful, only that nobody touched him before he drew his final breath.

Belial taps his temple with his fingers, gently prodding. “You’d gone completely flatline. Usually I love those looks of yours; sometimes you’re curious when you’re digging inside someone to see what makes them twitch, sometimes you’re a fire constantly blazing, but that day-- nothing. Is finally getting your goal enough to rinse you out and turn you  _ dull _ ?”

Above his head, Lucilius’ fingers twitch. Does Belial dare to know him better than he knows himself?

A grin splits Belial’s cheeks. “Yes, that’s it! None of that toneless corpse-talk, the man I love is always burning! Blood doesn’t matter. Your old family, your brother, doesn’t matter. Burn as Lucilius. We’re dead men walking. That city, that home-- we’re never going back. This is a new place. Nobody knows the Astrale name here.” Belial brightens, pushing his face close. “So if you promise to not kill yourself right away, I’ll loosen the bindings. You can do that, can’t you?”

Lucilius bashes his right knee against Belial’s skull. Belial crashes into the nightstand and comes up laughing, his teeth bloodied. He wipes at his nose, leaving a red smear across his upper lip. “Ah, this is why I love you, Cil. You’re too good to get snuffed out like some old candle.”

* * *

Faults in the pavement erupt like jagged teeth ascending from the heart of the earth. Beneath the asphalt there are holes. So many holes. Their city is filled with them, and not all of them are empty. She spots a few unfortunate cars down the bottom of one, a crane being hoisted to save the family inside and miraculously alive. She sees others, other gaping throats choked with crushed gravel and sand--

\-- and when the sky opens up, mud. The sun shower blooms in bright light across the horizon of the half-eaten town.

She finds her commander at the end of things, contemplating the welcome sign at city limits.

Helel turns his back on her approach. His eyes glide beyond her, following her kinetic energy, tracing a path back to the necrotic tissue of the city. His long hair is flattening to his face and his scalp in the rain. He doesn’t even seem to notice it.

He jumps out of his skin when she unfurls her umbrella and sticks it between the both of them.

“Did I fail?” he asks her, her commanding officer, the face of justice and the word of the law. He sounds distantly horrified by the calamity that has been wrought. That’s how it feels, too, even having been in the midst of it. One thing happened, then the next, and the next, and then suddenly the police had convinced the families to lay down their arms when the Astrale’s final betrayal was unspun.

Shalem places herself on the hood of Helel’s car. She gathers her feet beneath her. The umbrella falls nearer to her face; Helel does not stoop down to come into its cradle of safety. She imagines herself pulling out a stack of gum and offering the man a piece of minty freshness.  But she just says, “We all fail in different ways.” She uses the same vague tone, the same glassy-eyed stare, the quirk of the lips that Helel always tries to deliver his wisdom with. He glances at her. He notices the effect. He looks slack-jawed, not entirely sure what to make of her. Not her, and not of the world. “You will find him.”

Helel shakes his head. “He’s gone.”

“Then try harder,” scoffs Shalem.

The fire that should be there has been cleaved through with an icy blade. Perhaps Helel is realising, for the very first time, that things here would have always played out like this. That for all his bluster and achievements, he is no more powerful than the teenage girls swearing allegiance to the neighbourhood family to upset their parents.

“Have I done wrong?” he continues, shaking his head slowly. The morning twinkles against each rain drop and makes it shiver. The sheerness of Helel’s white shirt exposes the beginnings of his chest. Shalem glances over at it and feels absolutely nothing. “Was I on the wrong path all along?”

Shrugging, Shalem intends to leave it at that. She doesn’t need the conversation. She needs the distance from the city and the hubbub, the people who speak over her stutters and lisped words, the casual certainty of glancing over and finding Helel is already there. He doesn’t even realise what he has. It’s despicable.  “Take a good look at yourself,” she enunciates carefully, “then come find me.” She snaps the umbrella closed and hops off his car.

What word does one use to describe a localised singularity? Is a bomb that goes off for an instant still living a type of life? Or are they all bombs, fuses shortening with every year, ticking down to their own eventual self-destruction?  Or maybe, like a flower, they only bloom in the ways they must. Nothing more. Nothing less.

Helel takes her hand before he can go, the cold rainwater seeping between their loosely-gathered palms. She watches his expression, the same as a man lost at sea, a man yearning for hope.  She sees family. She squeezes back, the dirt on her hands sluiced through by rivulets of rainwater, turned into mud again. Ashes to ashes. Mud to mud.

“What should the new name be?” he asks her softly, a budding chicken without a mother.

“Isn’t that your job?” His eyes beseech her and she sighs. The moments tick by while the air freezes, the wind whipping the droplets into something softer. Smoother. “Assisi.”

“Assisi,” he answers back, stroking the sign of their town. They’ll tear it down. Remake everything again.

Honour the self. Honour the family. Honour the principles and honour the traditions you lay your back against. Until, one day, you must take a sledgehammer to it all, when the ground is pulled out from under you and you lay in a pile of rubble.

She does not see the sheen of hope glisten in Helel’s eyes. She only sees a relentless idea of determination.

Shalem looks to the horizon and rubs the thin stretch of his back.

To mud, they are born, and to mud they return. Blooming again.


End file.
